Wifi, Battery, SD expansion, USB recognition - OMG

I have posted about the problem I was originally having in the Networking section, but haven't gotten any response yet. Since posting that, I've noticed some other issues that may be pointing to other issues not specifically networking-based, soooo here I am in the newbie Linux section, begging for help!

I have an 8 gig SSD Linpus Linux One. The things I have changed are as follows: added Switch Desktop icon as described elsewhere on this forum (but I stay in the regular XFCE desktop), installed some games, installed GIMP, installed a new network manager for WPA stuff for school as seen here viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1028&, installed Cairo-dock, installed VLC, uninstalled Cairo-dock, reinstalled Cairo-dock, added Compiz-manager and Cairo-dock to XFCE autostart, tried to update Java so's I could play a web-based game, which totally failed.

After the last thing I did, everything started up just fine, worked just fine for hours, and overnight, and the next day. I haven't fixed the issue with my wireless cutting out when the laptop goes to standby, so when I got back from a shower I knew I was going to have to restart to get internet working again.

So I shut down. And the thing didn't... shut down. So I did a hard shutdown by holding down the power switch. And then turned it back on, where it hung for quite a while and I did a hard shut down again. When it finally came back up, taking an extra long amount of time to do so, it didn't automagically detect my wireless or ask me for a password or anything. Clicking on the network icon gave me a menu that, once populated with lots of glorious wireless networks to choose from, now only shows a greyed out "No network devices available" and a selectable "VPN Connections" menu item. Also, it showed that my battery was fully charged and that my One was plugged in, which it wasn't. Today, I noticed that the problem is more widespread: my 8 gig expansion card isn't being detected and my USB stick (which I was going to use to transfer my docs to in the event of a restore) isn't being recognized. Webcam too: No Supported video capture device found! Aaaaand audio too, I just checked: "No volume control GStreamer plugins and/or devices found."

I have tried some of the tricks in the forum already. I turned it off and removed the battery - no luck. I tried starting the netmanager applet with nm-applet in the terminal, but it says "could not acquire the NetworkManagerUserSettings service as it is already taken." I can right-click on the network icon and by choosing "Edit Connections," see that my old wireless networks are all there. I just can't get the applet to go, "Hey! Let's connect to one of these!"

Because there's now an issue getting my One to recognize my expansion and USB drive, I really really don't want to do a restore. I mean, I didn't before, but now I really really don't. EDIT: It just occured to me that I CAN'T do a restore, because it won't recognize the USB drive. -cry-

Ideas? I'm really hoping someone will be able to go "Oh right! That's because you blahblah" and it'll be easy. At this point, I'll even take a "hey loser, use search: [helpful link]."

 

I have a nasty feeling you may end up with a restore here; it looks as though there's been some sort of file corruption. But one thing could be worth trying: get a terminal and do

Code:

ps ax | grep hal

Is there a process called hald running? Hald handles a lot of hardware stuff (it's the Hardware Abstraction Layer daemon, to give it its full name, so a major interface between 'real' hardware and the computer's view of it). If it's not running, you can *try* running it manually:

Code:

sudo /etc/init.d/haldaemon start

and see if that helps at all. I seem to recall seeing situations before where hal failed on startup, but after a manual start would work on reboot.

If that fails, then don't despair: just because Linux can't see your USB stiock doesn't mean the One can't. The restore works at BIOS level, before any operating system has loaded, so is unaffected by an issue with the OS. If you put your stick into the machine, start it and press F(er, it's 2 or 12, the screen will tell you) you should still be able to see your USB stick listed in the options for boot.

 

Poop. It says, and I loosely transcribe here:

800 ? Ss 0:00 hald
801 ? S 0:00 hald-runner
818 ? S 0:00 hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpid socket /var/run/acpid.socket
2178 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep hal

and then it says:
eff you man I don't want to be your netbooking beeyotch any more.

Okay, it doesn't say that. But it might as well!

I did what you said anyway, b/c I'm desperate. It said:
Starting HAL daemon:
touch: cannot touch 'var/lock/subsys/haldaemon' : No such file or directory

Siiiigh.

 

Ok. Hal problems tend to be awkward, sorry....

Let's just check a couple of things before giving up:

Code:

ps ax | grep udev
ps ax | grep dbus
ls -la /var/lock/subsys

That checks two other parts of the system and has a quick look to see if there's anything obvious causing the specific error message.

 

ok, for ps ax | grep udev, i get:
2379 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep udev

for ps ax | grep dbus, I get:
637 ? Ss 0:00 dbus-daemon --system
948 tty1 S+ 0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session
949 ? Ss 0:00 /bin/dbus-daemon --fork --print-pid 4 --print-address 6 --session
2653 pts/0 S+ 0:00 grep dbus

for the last one, I get:
ls: cannot access /var/lock/subsys: No such file or directory

I'm a noob, but that seems bad...

 

OKAY: I did all of this again, and instead of getting:

Starting HAL daemon:
touch: cannot touch 'var/lock/subsys/haldaemon' : No such file or directory

I got: Starting HAL daemon:

So then I looked at /var/lock/subsys again, since it's apparently there now, and I got:

Code:

total 8
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-04-07 13:37 .
drwxrwxr-x 2 root lock 4096 2009-04-07 13:36 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    0 2009-04-07 13:36 acpid

and so on, listing consolekit, crond, cups, haldaemon, local, messagebus, netfx, network, NetworkManager, and wpa_supplicant, with the same attributes as acpid above except for the timestamps.

So does that mean anything?

 

Is anything more working now? If not, does rebooting at this stage make anything more work?

There are no guaranatees on this, but if all that lot is now running (hald, dbus, udev), and if it all restarts itself properly on reboot, then you should have at least some of the stuff working.....

 

Rebooting Now. Standby.

It's taking a really long time to shutdown, which makes me think something's happening when the /var/lock/subsys is getting cleared on shutdown? (I read something about that and now I talk like I know what I'm saying, which I don't.)

Annnnd now it's back up, and... NOTHING works! Gah! No mouse, no keyboard. Can't get a terminal. wtfffffff??

Trying hard shutdown and restart. I just got the Acer black screen, then Aspire blue screen (which normally happens), and then the Acer black screen and then the Apsire blue screen again! Ok, finally started up and now I have mouse and keyboard back, but nothing works again. Tried haldaemon start again, says "Starting HAL daemon:" which should mean things are working right? Nope. I looked at /var/lock/subsys again and got the same list.

 

Hmmm. To be honest, at this stage I'd go for a restore - have you got any data you need to try to get off it first?

 

I had some pictures, but I can live without them. I already took an hour and transcribed what fiction i had on it to a google doc. What I worry about is that if this issue wasn't triggered by anything, how'm I ever going to trust it again? I guess I'll just have to save to SD cards from now on.

One question remains: I don't have a 2 gig USB drive, but I do have an 8 gig SD card and an adapter that reads SD cards via usb port. Will it work? Who knows. I'll report back in a couple of days when I've had time to grieve and figure this restore business out. Thanks for your help.

-age

 

Success! Here's what worked:

rm /ect/mtab~*
reboot

Hooray! No restore!

 

That's good - but I don't see how it worked!

mtab~* would be old versions of the mtab file. Deleting the mtab itself might work (assuming it had somehow got 'stuck' and wasn't being recreated at startup), but why the old versions should have any influence I've no idea!

 

I have no idea how it worked myself! My friend just said to try it, and I did without having much hope that it would work. But voila! It did!

I'm beyond thrilled. I love my little One.

 

the incredible thing about this is, that i had the same problem....just don't ask me how i got to that stage...however...what i did try while getting the system back up was to switch to virtual mode...

at the end of the shutdown procedure it said somethin like 'can't acces /etc/mtab~*' which made me pretty curious...
(as i havn't been brave enough to simply delete the file, i did a backup of the most important files using damn small linux)

Then i found this article and u saved my night...thank you!!!