Hi, I just installed Manjaro today. I’m assuming something causes a kernel panic because it’s a total system freeze, I can’t access ttys when that happens, also for some reason caps lock blinks, but I assume that’s just my computer, and it seems rather random. I don’t know what triggers it, though. I don’t exactly remember what part of journalctl was needed for this, so please send me the line I need to enter, and I will be able to give you more detailed information.
No, a blinking Caps Lock LED is the kernel’s way of letting you know it has entered the panic state.
If you’re working in a tty
when it happens, then the kernel will dump its registers to the tty
, but if on the other hand you’re working in a GUI environment, then there’s no visual clue that the freeze is the result of a kernel panic. That’s why the mechanism of using the LEDs as a signal of a kernel panic was added to the kernel.
The journal normally won’t have any entries about it, because writing to the journal is a userspace process, and when the kernel panics, it effectively halts.
There are many potential reasons for a kernel panic. It could be because of a kernel bug, but unless you’re using some experimental or still bleeding-edge kernel, this would be unlikely.
Most of the time, kernel panics are the result of a hardware problem. This may not necessarily be a permanent problem — for instance, atmospheric conditions and/or cosmic radiation are known to sometimes flip bits in memory, causing the right conditions for a kernel panic, or even just a complete freeze without that the kernel even has a chance to go into panic mode. I’ve had it happen to my own system here only yesterday — it’s very hot and humid over here at the moment, and it’s only a matter of time before another thunderstorm breaks loose over here.
Another cause — also weather-related — could be overheating, and especially so if the machine is a laptop. If this applies to your case, try cleaning out the ventilation openings and/or the CPU fan.
Finally, the last category of causes would be a permanent hardware failure, such as in the event of a genuinely bad memory module, or another malfunctioning component in the machine.
Hi again, thank you for the answer. The computer is rater new and before Manjaro, I used Linux Mint for 2 months without any issues.
So is my best bet to hang around tty and wait for a kernel panic?
Edit: I should add, the computer temperature is really low.
No, that would be silly.
What you could do is run memtest68
on your machine so as to rule out a faulty memory module — not that a clean bill from memtest86
would mean that there are no faults in the memory modules, mind you, but at least a 24-hour test should give you some information to go on.
The machine being new is no guarantee that none of the components are faulty — trust me, I’ve got ample experience with that.
Nevertheless, what I meant to say is that kernel panics may happen even on healthy hardware, due to atmospheric or other circumstances. If it only happens once in a blue moon, then you can ignore it and simply reboot the computer. If on the other hand it happens quite frequently, then that warrants investigation.
Either way, the first thing you should monitor is the temperature. Make sure the machine gets proper airflow and cooling, because that too can lead to kernel panics and other system freezes.
After today’s update, all looks in order. Haven’t panicked at all after the update. I’ll keep the thread unsolved for a day or two just to make sure though. Thank you for all the help!
Edit: it didn’t happen again, so I’m closing the topic. Big thanks to Manjaro team for the quick fix.
So you did as I told you and then you’re marking your own post as the solution, eh?
Ahahah, I completely forgot that you are a part of the Manjaro team too, sorry
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