Ubuntu
gdm package

/etc/init.d/gdm restart in X fails to start gdm

Bug #80339 reported by Marius Gedminas
6
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
gdm (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: gdm

Just today I tried to restart gdm with sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart from an X terminal. The server shut down (it took quite some time, > 10 seconds, for a while I thought the system crashed), and I was left looking at a text console.

/var/log/daemon.log has this:

Jan 17 22:31:02 localhost gdm[26242]: Display :0 is busy. There is another X server running already.
Jan 17 22:31:05 localhost gdm[26242]: Display :0 is busy. There is another X server running already.

Looks like /etc/init.d/gdm restart does not wait for the current gdm to fully shut down before it tries to start a new one.

Revision history for this message
Pascal Potvin (pascal-potvin) wrote :

It doesn't work because the command is run within a gdm session.

It causes one of those two things :

1- The xterm is closed, as the script, and gdm just doesn't start
2- xterm makes X stays open while gdm is down, and gdm cannot start a new X session.

One easy workaround is to start the command in screen.

Changed in gdm:
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

not really a bug, don't stop gdm while you are using it

Changed in gdm:
status: Confirmed → Rejected
Revision history for this message
Rob Simmons (rjsimmon) wrote :

I'm not sure this is the case. I had Gnome freeze on me while logged in as (say) user1 (that freezing is a separate problem, don't know why that happened yet) and I wasn't able to do CTRL-ALT-F(n) for whatever reason. However, if I SSH in and run /etc/init.d/gdm restart I get roughly the same behavior - the same frozen screen is still on the monitor, and if I log in as user2 and then run "sudo killall -u user1," I still can't get restarting gdm to make a difference on the monitor, and I get a new message in /var/log/daemon.log "WARNING: Display :0 is busy. There is another X server running already. " each time I try.

(I'm using a new installation of Ubuntu 8.10, I'm not sure if this is a different bug as the one described here.)

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