Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:

> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Apparently, though unproven, at 12:28 on Monday 01 November 2010, Harry Putnam
> > did opine thusly:
> >
> >> Something I have not run into before.
> >>
> >> Following a major update still in progress I find the ls command will
> >> not run on $HOME.
> >>
> >> I can view the directory with emacs in dired mode but `ls' simply will
> >> not complete... never shows anything and stays hung indefinitely.
> >>
> >> Top shows 94% idle so its not from heavy system usage.
> >>
> >> The ls command seems to work anywhere else, and I see nothing peculiar
> >> when viewing $HOME with emacs.
> >>
> >> Running `ls' from a root shell against my user $HOME, is the same story,
> >> indefinite hang, nothing listed.
> >>
> >> I've let it run from both user and root shell for upwards of 1/2 hr.
> >> Still just sets there.
> >>
> >> I've killed the terminal and restarted both user and root shells. But
> >> still the same result... a `ls' against my user $HOME will just hang.
> >>
> >> In both root shell and user shell, once `ls' is run against my user
> >> $HOME, the command hangs but also cannot by interrupted. Ctrl-c will
> >> not stop it.
> >>
> >> It only seem to happen on $HOME.... how very odd.
> >> Anyone else seen that or have an idea what might be the cause?
> >
> > By the time the command hits ls itself, the shell has already expanded the
> > HOME variable. So it's unlikely to be the command and more something dodgy
> > with your shell.
> >
> > What shell are you using?
> > What is the output of "echo $HOME"?
>
> My shell is xterm... and was just updated to:
> Wed Oct 27 10:15:06 2010 >>> x11-terms/xterm-262
>
> echo $HOME
> /home/reader
>
> That recent update may be the problem. I'll back that out later to
> see, but right now have a bigger and more urgent problem getting mail
> back in order following a major update.
Sendmail will reject if the load is high enough. This can be adjusted
and if your load is 12, this is probably the problem. Also, make sure
the daemon is running -- you should have two daemons, the mta and the
other one (mssp) I think which reads the mclient-queue.

--
Your life is like a penny. You're going to lose it. The question is:
How do
you spend it?

John Covici
covici@ccs.covici.com

Am 01.11.2010 11:28, schrieb Harry Putnam:

> I can view the directory with emacs in dired mode but `ls' simply will
> not complete... never shows anything and stays hung indefinitely.
[...]
> It only seem to happen on $HOME.... how very odd.
> Anyone else seen that or have an idea what might be the cause?

No. But maybe 'strace ls' will show something?

Is /home on a separate partition? I'd do a fsck on it. touch /forcefsck
or use a live cd for this. Good luck,

Wonko

Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org> writes:

> Am 01.11.2010 11:28, schrieb Harry Putnam:
>
>> I can view the directory with emacs in dired mode but `ls' simply will
>> not complete... never shows anything and stays hung indefinitely.
> [...]
>> It only seem to happen on $HOME.... how very odd.
>> Anyone else seen that or have an idea what might be the cause?
>
> No. But maybe 'strace ls' will show something?
>
> Is /home on a separate partition? I'd do a fsck on it. touch /forcefsck
> or use a live cd for this. Good luck,

Just to close this thread... a reboot swept away all `ls' problems so
still not sure what caused it, but am happily having normal experience
with `ls' once again.

The reboot was strictly unplanned, as the machine locked up
overnight... no console access or by ssh, resulting in a hard manual
reboot.

When the machine came up, the `ls' problem had disappeared as well as
sendmail problems discussed in a different thread.

Thank you all for input and suggestions

On 2010-11-05, Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
> Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org> writes:
>
>> Am 01.11.2010 11:28, schrieb Harry Putnam:
>>
>>> I can view the directory with emacs in dired mode but `ls' simply will
>>> not complete... never shows anything and stays hung indefinitely.
>> [...]
>>> It only seem to happen on $HOME.... how very odd.
>>> Anyone else seen that or have an idea what might be the cause?
>>
>> No. But maybe 'strace ls' will show something?
>>
>> Is /home on a separate partition? I'd do a fsck on it. touch /forcefsck
>> or use a live cd for this. Good luck,
>
> Just to close this thread... a reboot swept away all `ls' problems so
> still not sure what caused it, but am happily having normal experience
> with `ls' once again.
>
> The reboot was strictly unplanned, as the machine locked up
> overnight... no console access or by ssh, resulting in a hard manual
> reboot.
>
> When the machine came up, the `ls' problem had disappeared as well as
> sendmail problems discussed in a different thread.

It sounds to me like you've got hardware problems. I'd at least run
memtest86 overnight if I were you.

--
Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! I feel partially
at hydrogenated!
gmail.com

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Another thing to check, is that the folder is marked +x in chmod. It may be that on reboot some automated cleaning script re-added that flag.

Folders can only be listed if they are +x btw

On 06/11/2010, at 01:37, Grant Edwards wrote:

> On 2010-11-05, Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
>> Alex Schuster <wonko@wonkology.org> writes:
>>
>>> Am 01.11.2010 11:28, schrieb Harry Putnam:
>>>
>>>> I can view the directory with emacs in dired mode but `ls' simply will
>>>> not complete... never shows anything and stays hung indefinitely.
>>> [...]
>>>> It only seem to happen on $HOME.... how very odd.
>>>> Anyone else seen that or have an idea what might be the cause?
>>>
>>> No. But maybe 'strace ls' will show something?
>>>
>>> Is /home on a separate partition? I'd do a fsck on it. touch /forcefsck
>>> or use a live cd for this. Good luck,
>>
>> Just to close this thread... a reboot swept away all `ls' problems so
>> still not sure what caused it, but am happily having normal experience
>> with `ls' once again.
>>
>> The reboot was strictly unplanned, as the machine locked up
>> overnight... no console access or by ssh, resulting in a hard manual
>> reboot.
>>
>> When the machine came up, the `ls' problem had disappeared as well as
>> sendmail problems discussed in a different thread.
>
> It sounds to me like you've got hardware problems. I'd at least run
> memtest86 overnight if I were you.
>
> --
> Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! I feel partially
> at hydrogenated!
> gmail.com
>
>

William Brown

pgp.mit.edu



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Indexer writes:

> Another thing to check, is that the folder is marked +x in chmod.
> It may be that on reboot some automated cleaning script re-added
> that flag.
>
> Folders can only be listed if they are +x btw

Right, but Harry would have gotten a permission denied error in this
case, not a hanging ls process.

Alex

* Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:

> Just to close this thread... a reboot swept away all `ls' problems so
> still not sure what caused it, but am happily having normal experience
> with `ls' once again.

Might well be that the reboot caused an fsck run, which fixed
the problems.


cu
--
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phone: +49 36207 519931 email: weigelt@metux.de
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