Since upgrading to precise, the text in the Unity title bar is fuzzy. I thought this might be my general font settings, but Window titles, which seem to use the exact same font, don't have this problem at all. Here's a screenshot, showing the Unity title bar just above a window title bar showing the same text:
If you zoom in, you can see a green shadow effect in the Unity title bar text.
I just bought a brand new battery to replace one that had seemingly died. I followed the instructions that came with the battery and charged it overnight, then ran my computer on battery until it was in a critical state and charged it overnight again. Now the battery appears to be 100% charged and at the same time at 0% capacity—when it's plugged in it doesn't charge and when it's unplugged the computer immediately goes into low power mode.
I've taken the battery out and checked the contacts. I've rebooted the system with and without the battery. Nothing seems to help.
I'm not sure if I should blame the battery, the laptop, the charger, or the power management software for this state of affairs. The obvious answer would be the battery but I bought this battery because another year-old battery exhibited similar behavior—I assumed it was dead and a Dell tech came to the same conclusion. I'm loathe to order another new battery without first exploring other explanations.
What can I do to diagnose this problem?
Here's the /proc info:
$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state
present: yes
capacity state: critical
charging state: charged
present rate: 1 mA
remaining capacity: 0 mAh
present voltage: 9754 mV
$ cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info
present: yes
design capacity: 6600 mAh
last full capacity: 6789 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 11100 mV
design capacity warning: 660 mAh
design capacity low: 200 mAh
cycle count: 0
capacity granularity 1: 66 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 66 mAh
model number: DELL WK
serial number: 4043
battery type: LION
OEM info: SMP
[UPDATE] It turned out to be the AC adapter. I find it very strange that a faulty adapter can cause the charging state to be "charged" on an empty battery.
I'll still up-vote answers that give good debugging strategies for this situation—swapping out the battery and adapter, in turn, is obvious but one doesn't always have a spare battery or adapter around to play with. As noted below, Dell was actually prepared to send a technician to my house to replace the motherboard, which would have been a phenomenal waste of time and money.
I created a shell script /usr/local/bin/suspend with the following content:
#! /bin/sh
# Take an optional delay parameter
if [ "$#" -gt "0" ]; then
sleep "$1"
fi
# Put the system to sleep
dbus-send --system --print-reply --dest="org.freedesktop.Hal" \
/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer \
org.freedesktop.Hal.Device.SystemPowerManagement.Suspend \
int32:0
If I chmod +x and run the script by invoking it directly (e.g., just typing suspend or /usr/local/bin/suspend on the command line), nothing happens and the shell hangs—it doesn't even respond to Ctrl-C; I have to switch to a new shell and kill the bash process (which has no apparent children).
The script works fine if I invoke it in any of the following ways:
sh /usr/local/bin/suspend.. /usr/local/bin/suspend.suspend.sh and invoking /usr/local/bin/suspend.sh (or just suspend.sh, since it's in the PATH).The last option is fine, but still I wonder: what exactly is wrong with not using the .sh extension?
My system has started behaving strangely, intermittently locking up. I see messages like the following in syslog:
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078156] ata3.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078163] ata3.00: irq_stat 0x40000000
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078167] sr 2:0:0:0: CDB: Test Unit Ready: 00 00 00 00 00 00
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078182] ata3.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078184] res 50/00:03:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x1 (device error)
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.078188] ata3.00: status: { DRDY }
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080887] ata3.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080890] ata3.00: irq_stat 0x40000000
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080893] sr 2:0:0:0: CDB: Test Unit Ready: 00 00 00 00 00 00
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080905] ata3.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080906] res 50/00:03:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x1 (device error)
Nov 18 22:22:00 claypool kernel: [ 3428.080910] ata3.00: status: { DRDY }
And then this:
Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000798] ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000804] ata1.00: failed command: FLUSH CACHE EXT
Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000814] ata1.00: cmd ea/00:00:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0
Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000815] res 40/00:00:00:4f:c2/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 0x4 (timeout)
Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000819] ata1.00: status: { DRDY }
Nov 18 23:13:56 claypool kernel: [ 6544.000825] ata1: hard resetting link
Nov 18 23:14:01 claypool kernel: [ 6549.360324] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
Nov 18 23:14:06 claypool kernel: [ 6554.008091] ata1: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Nov 18 23:14:06 claypool kernel: [ 6554.008103] ata1: hard resetting link
Nov 18 23:14:11 claypool kernel: [ 6559.372246] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
Nov 18 23:14:16 claypool kernel: [ 6564.020228] ata1: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Nov 18 23:14:16 claypool kernel: [ 6564.020235] ata1: hard resetting link
Nov 18 23:14:21 claypool kernel: [ 6569.380109] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.460243] ata1: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.486595] ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.486601] ata1.00: retrying FLUSH 0xea Emask 0x4
Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.486939] ata1.00: device reported invalid CHS sector 0
Nov 18 23:14:31 claypool kernel: [ 6579.486952] ata1: EH complete
Nov 18 23:17:01 claypool CRON[3910]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
Nov 18 23:17:01 claypool CRON[3908]: (CRON) error (grandchild #3910 failed with exit status 1)
Nov 18 23:17:01 claypool postfix/sendmail[3925]: fatal: open /etc/postfix/main.cf: No such file or directory
Nov 18 23:17:01 claypool CRON[3908]: (root) MAIL (mailed 1 byte of output; but got status 0x004b, #012)
Nov 18 23:39:01 claypool CRON[4200]: (root) CMD ( [ -x /usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime ] && [ -d /var/lib/php5 ] && find /var/lib/php5/ -type f -cmin +$(/usr/lib/php5/maxlifetime) -print0 | xargs -n 200 -r -0 rm)
There are no messages marked after 23:39. When I next tried to use the machine, it would not return from the screensaver (blank screen), nor switch to another terminal, and I had to hard reboot it.
[UPDATE] The output of smartctl is here. I had trouble getting this, because / is being mounted read-only (?!), which prevents most applications from running.
Also, it may not be related, but I have the following worrying messages in dmesg:
[ 10.084596] k8temp 0000:00:18.3: Temperature readouts might be wrong - check erratum #141
[ 10.098477] i2c i2c-0: nForce2 SMBus adapter at 0x600
[ 10.098483] ACPI: resource nForce2_smbus [io 0x0700-0x073f] conflicts with ACPI region SM00 [??? 0x00000700-0x0000073f flags 0x30]
[ 10.098486] ACPI: This conflict may cause random problems and system instability
[ 10.098487] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver
[ 10.098509] i2c i2c-1: nForce2 SMBus adapter at 0x700
[ 10.112570] Linux agpgart interface v0.103
[ 10.155329] atk: Resources not safely usable due to acpi_enforce_resources kernel parameter
[ 10.161506] it87: Found IT8712F chip at 0x290, revision 8
[ 10.161517] it87: VID is disabled (pins used for GPIO)
[ 10.161527] it87: in3 is VCC (+5V)
[ 10.161528] it87: in7 is VCCH (+5V Stand-By)
[ 10.161560] ACPI: resource it87 [io 0x0295-0x0296] conflicts with ACPI region ECRE [??? 0x00000290-0x000002af flags 0x45]
[ 10.161562] ACPI: This conflict may cause random problems and system instability
[ 10.161564] ACPI: If an ACPI driver is available for this device, you should use it instead of the native driver
[UPDATE 2] I swapped in a new SATA cable, per Phil's suggestion. The current output of smartctl is here, if it helps.
[UPDATE 3] I don't think the cable fixed it. The system hasn't locked up yet, but my media player crashed a few minutes ago and I have the following in the syslog:
Nov 20 16:07:17 claypool kernel: [ 2294.400033] ata1: link is slow to respond, please be patient (ready=0)
Nov 20 16:07:47 claypool kernel: [ 2324.084581] ata1: COMRESET failed (errno=-16)
Nov 20 16:07:47 claypool kernel: [ 2324.084588] ata1: limiting SATA link speed to 1.5 Gbps
Nov 20 16:07:47 claypool kernel: [ 2324.084592] ata1: hard resetting link
I get the following response from smartctl:
$ sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
[sudo] password for chris:
sudo: Can't open /var/lib/sudo/chris/0: Read-only file system
smartctl 5.40 2010-03-16 r3077 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-10 by Bruce Allen, http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net
Device: /0:0:0:0 Version:
scsiModePageOffset: response length too short, resp_len=47 offset=50 bd_len=46
>> Terminate command early due to bad response to IEC mode page
A mandatory SMART command failed: exiting. To continue, add one or more '-T permissive' options.
My .bash_env file sets several environment variables, including PATH and EMAIL, but in an Emacs session launched from the Gnome Panel (command: "/usr/bin/emacs23 %F") these variables do not have the expected values. I've run into this problem before (see this blog post). I fixed it then by sourcing .bash_env in my .xsession file. Obviously, this is no longer working.
The variables are set properly if I manually launch Emacs from a terminal. Oddly, they aren't set if I change the panel launcher to execute Emacs in a terminal (I would think this would start Bash before starting Emacs).
How can I make sure the regular Bash environment is set up for the Emacs session?
My wifi connection drops sometimes and, for some reason, Network Manager attempts to connect to my neighbor's network, which requires a password that I don't know. The network in question is not listed in the "Edit Connections..." dialog and I can find no reference to it in any configuration file, but still the password dialog pops up every time my main connection drops. Is there a way to blacklist a wireless network so that the Network Manager will never attempt to connect to it? Or, equivalently, how can I remove the configuration data that causes the Network Manager to attempt to connect to this particular network?