Since about two weeks my system (Ubuntu 14.04) causes reboots itself (it seems to freeze for a fraction of a second). The reboot problem began at that time I updated the BIOS since I had weird dropouts with my mouse. The mouse was sometimes stuttering while moving. It looked like it looses power for a fraction of a second because the laser was fluctuating. At any rate, I updated the BIOS and the mouse problems were gone, but it seems that the reboot problems began at this time. I'm not sure if it is a software or hardware problem, but I think it's an hardware problem, because the reboot happens about 1 1/2 - 2 hours after starting the computer. If it would be a software problem, the error would probably appear randomly. If it reboots itself then, I didn't get any more reboots for that new session. It seems that the computer needs to be started from new to cause this problem. I never had the problem twice a session, so it seems that it is gone as long as I don't switch off the computer for some hours (but this could be coincidence too).
What I tried so far to narrow the problem down:
- I checked the syslog, but there is no any important information before reboot log entries. Always openVPN ran before, but once 9 min before, one 16 min before, so I don't think it's a problem with OpenVPN. [UPDATE] It's not OpenVPN, because it also crashed without it.
- I changed the PSU and use a stronger one now. So it's surely no power problem with a weak or damaged PSU.
- I exchanged the mouse by a new one from another vendor.
- I disconnected the two RAID0 HDDs and both DVD/RW ROMs.
- I always checked the CPU temperature. It's always between 40 - 50°C
- I was able to log a crash with auditd, but the last process which accessed the system before crash was Java (since I had Eclipse running). But I don't think this has anything to do with the crash.
- I executed memtest twice for 4 1/2 hours - no errors and no reboot
- I let Ubuntu run without starting any application - no crash after 5 hours, but crash came hours later when working with the computer (Eclipse, browser) (latest attempt).
Any more ideas what can cause this behaviour according to the description? (I will also test the RAM at next and I will not revert the BIOS, since this seems to be a workound but no solution, in case that this helps at all. There must be an error somewhere else whereby I can't imagine it's the RAM because it wouldn't freeze and reboot after 1 - 2 hours then).
[UPDATE] It seems that the crash (at least often) happens pretty exactly after two hours. I tried to check the BIOS for anything which could cause this. I saw that my clock was 2 hours behind (since BIOS update I didn't set it). I cannot imagine how a wrong clock could cause a crash with reboot, but I set it to the right time for now. Or any ideas, about this?
[UPDATE] I had a freeze under 2 hours even after setting the correct BIOS time, so it didn't have anything to do with it. I executed memtest for 4 1/2 hours - no errors and no reboot while memtest. Maybe this could explain that it's no hardware bug. I will try another attempt soon. If it doesn't freeze and reboot again while memtest, can I say that it's no hardware problem? But when it's a software problem, how does it come that it doesn't occur anymore after the PC rebooted once?
[UPDATE] Obviously it doesn't crash when running memtest. So it seems to be no hardware error. I will run memtest another time to be sure, but it indicates more and more that this could be a software error. But if that's so, why does it not occur after reboot? That's the big question. You could argue that the RAM is not totally emptied when rebooting but this seems to be quite a stretch, isn't it? Maybe it indicates that Java causes a crash since the JVM interacts with low level APIs more than other applications. And the latest crash could fit to this assumption: It didn't crashed as long as I didn't use Eclipse. On the other hand it doesn't explain why it doesn't crash so late and not until 2 hours after start using Eclipse.
[UPDATE] I tried the solution from here but I don't see any information, no kernel panic, nothing, which shows me which causes the reboot that happens at 9:49:31. As you can see, there is nothing which happened before:
Jul 12 06:56:36 ubuntu anacron[1329]: Job `cron.daily' terminated
Jul 12 06:56:36 ubuntu anacron[1329]: Normal exit (1 job run)
Jul 12 07:17:01 ubuntu CRON[3312]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jul 12 07:30:01 ubuntu CRON[3340]: (root) CMD (start -q anacron || :)
Jul 12 07:30:01 ubuntu anacron[3343]: Anacron 2.3 started on 2014-07-12
Jul 12 07:30:01 ubuntu anacron[3343]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
Jul 12 07:47:50 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: VERIFY OK: depth=1, C=AT, ST=AT, L=Vienna, O=MYCOMPANY, OU=MYCOMPANY, CN=OpenVPN-CA, name=vpn.MYCOMPANY.com, emailAddress=myemail.com
Jul 12 07:47:50 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: VERIFY OK: nsCertType=SERVER
Jul 12 07:47:50 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: VERIFY OK: depth=0, C=AT, ST=AT, L=Vienna, O=MYCOMPANY, OU=MYCOMPANY, CN=server, name=vpn.MYCOMPANY.com, emailAddress=myemail.com
Jul 12 07:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Data Channel Encrypt: Cipher 'BF-CBC' initialized with 128 bit key
Jul 12 07:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Data Channel Encrypt: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication
Jul 12 07:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Data Channel Decrypt: Cipher 'BF-CBC' initialized with 128 bit key
Jul 12 07:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Data Channel Decrypt: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication
Jul 12 07:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Control Channel: TLSv1, cipher TLSv1/SSLv3 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA, 1024 bit RSA
Jul 12 08:17:01 ubuntu CRON[3427]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jul 12 08:47:50 ubuntu signond[3481]: ../../../../src/signond/signondaemon.cpp 388 init Failed to SUID root. Secure storage will not be available.
Jul 12 08:47:50 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: TLS: tls_process: killed expiring key
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: TLS: soft reset sec=0 bytes=36908/0 pkts=703/0
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: VERIFY OK: depth=1, C=AT, ST=AT, L=Vienna, O=MYCOMPANY, OU=MYCOMPANY, CN=OpenVPN-CA, name=vpn.MYCOMPANY.com, emailAddress=myemail.com
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: VERIFY OK: nsCertType=SERVER
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: VERIFY OK: depth=0, C=AT, ST=AT, L=Vienna, O=MYCOMPANY, OU=MYCOMPANY, CN=server, name=vpn.MYCOMPANY.com, emailAddress=myemail.com
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Data Channel Encrypt: Cipher 'BF-CBC' initialized with 128 bit key
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Data Channel Encrypt: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Data Channel Decrypt: Cipher 'BF-CBC' initialized with 128 bit key
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Data Channel Decrypt: Using 160 bit message hash 'SHA1' for HMAC authentication
Jul 12 08:47:51 ubuntu ovpn-client[1388]: Control Channel: TLSv1, cipher TLSv1/SSLv3 DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA, 1024 bit RSA
Jul 12 09:17:01 ubuntu CRON[3561]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="1038" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] start
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu rsyslogd: rsyslogd's groupid changed to 104
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu rsyslogd: rsyslogd's userid changed to 101
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuset
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpu
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] Initializing cgroup subsys cpuacct
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] Linux version 3.13.0-24-generic (buildd@batsu) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #47-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 2 23:30:00 UTC 2014 (Ubuntu 3.13.0-24.47-generic 3.13.9)
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=87171c9e-5208-483b-922b-ecc1d1ccc940 ro quiet splash acpi=force acpi_osi=linux pci=nocrs vt.handoff=7
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] KERNEL supported cpus:
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] Intel GenuineIntel
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] AMD AuthenticAMD
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] Centaur CentaurHauls
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] e820: BIOS-provided physical RAM map:
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x000000000009ebff] usable
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000009ec00-0x000000000009ffff] reserved
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000000e6000-0x00000000000fffff] reserved
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000100000-0x00000000cff8ffff] usable
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000cff90000-0x00000000cffa7fff] ACPI data
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000cffa8000-0x00000000cffcffff] ACPI NVS
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000cffd0000-0x00000000cfffffff] reserved
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x00000000fff00000-0x00000000ffffffff] reserved
Jul 12 09:49:31 ubuntu kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000100000000-0x00000001afffffff] usable
[UPDATE]
This time I recorded another crash with auditd, but this time, it's not Java which was the last process, but Firefox. But it's no firefox problem, because it crashes with Chrome too.
Here a comparison between the two crashes (Java, and Firefox). This was the very last process when crash happened:
type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1404406767.671:1101024): arch=c000003e syscall=202 success=yes exit=0 a0=7f3b84ad5a28 a1=81 a2=1 a3=0 items=0 ppid=4384 pid=4441 auid=4294967295 uid=1000 gid=1000 euid=1000 suid=1000 fsuid=1000 egid=1000 sgid=1000 fsgid=1000 ses=4294967295 tty=(none) comm="java" exe="/usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/bin/java" key=(null)
type=SYSCALL msg=audit(1405241810.767:703964): arch=c000003e syscall=7 success=yes exit=0 a0=7f51bac49780 a1=7 a2=0 a3=3 items=0 ppid=1750 pid=3243 auid=4294967295 uid=1000 gid=1000 euid=1000 suid=1000 fsuid=1000 egid=1000 sgid=1000 fsgid=1000 ses=4294967295 tty=(none) comm="firefox" exe="/usr/lib/firefox/firefox" key=(null)
