Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 October 14

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October 14

Remove Chrome Bookmarks from Edge

I am using Microsoft Edge on a laptop running Windows 10. I have noticed that my bookmarks from Google Chrome seem to be syncing to Edge, which I don't want. Is there any way to stop the syncing and remove my Google Chrome bookmarks from Microsoft Edge? --185.73.65.98 (talk) 13:56, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Fedora Linux constant hang-ups

I have lately upgraded my home computer from Fedora Linux 26 to Fedora Linux 32. (My work computer runs Windows 10, that's company policy.)

I have noticed the Linux computer just randomly hangs up pretty much every single day. It's always when I'm doing something with the GUI, like with Gimp, gThumb or Mozilla Firefox. It's never when I'm doing something on the command line.

The computer just freezes. There's no crash or kernel panic. It just stops responding. Sometimes the mouse pointer moves, but nothing I move it onto reacts to it. Sometimes even the mouse pointer freezes.

The only way out is to physically power down the entire computer and then power it back up, after which the system is fully usable, until this happens the next time.

I'm completely at a loss at what is causing this. Is there something I can do about this? JIP | Talk 23:01, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

What does the syslog say? 84.51.144.129 (talk) 23:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

JIP, things to try:

• run sshd and try to log in from another computer on your LAN
• press Ctrl+Alt+Fx will switch virtual terminals and get to a display manager or a text login prompt
• monitor your thermals and RAM usage. If your system runs hot and siezes up, or you run out of memory, it could grind to a halt.

I am curious about your upgrade method. Did Fedora provide an automatic upgrade path to skip 6 versions ahead? Generally, we do not recommend an upgrade-in-place here, and it is preferable to reformat and install from scratch. Elizium23 (talk) 00:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I upgraded by reinstalling the root and boot partitions (where Fedora wants to be installed to) from scratch. I kept my home partition. I always keep the system itself and my home directory on separate partitions to retain all my personal files even after reinstalling the operating system from scratch. JIP | Talk 08:18, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I had major issues with gnome and my nvidia card causing complete gui lockup. Even the keyboard locked up. Strangely, the cursor still moved around. I switched to xfce and no lockups. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 11:34, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Seconded, the symptoms match cases I've seen a few times involving bad interactions between particular combinations of nvidia driver and wm compositor versions. Check your system logs for XID errors. 108.41.244.31 (talk) 18:48, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

I am unable to locate syslog in the first place. Neither the command syslog or the directory /var/log/syslog or the file /etc/syslog.conf seem to exist. JIP | Talk 23:51, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

JIP, Fedora uses journalctl(1) which comes with systemd. Log files are no longer plaintext. For starters, journalctl -b should show the current boot messages. journalctl -x will show plenty of stuff. Consult the manual page for more information. Elizium23 (talk) 00:18, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

journalctl -b and journalctl -x work. They show quite a lot of messages, at least several hundred. I don't even know what to look for. One thing to try would be to copy-paste the messages into a text file and upload it to some paste bin site. JIP | Talk 10:29, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

JIP, my limited knowledge and experiments reveal that journalctl -b -1 would be the command you want to run, to show all messages from the previous boot. The very end of that log would be the last messages before a hang/crash, so if they are informative that would be a good start. You can paste the messages somewhere, but I would advise you to be mindful of privacy so that you redact things like IP addresses, serial numbers, usernames, passwords, or other sensitive/personal information. Elizium23 (talk) 10:40, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course if I'm going to paste the log somewhere I will go through it myself and remove all sensitive information. JIP | Talk 10:41, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Try journalctl -p 3 -xb. -p 3 tells it you want errors. -x tells it to display extra information. -b means since last boot. You will see a lot less stuff. I just found out that my cups thinks I have a fax machine configured but it can't contact it. Off to muck around with cups.conf. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 11:22, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I suggested -b -1 because after a system hang, you've already rebooted, and so you want to be looking at messages from the prior system uptime. Elizium23 (talk) 11:28, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I ran both commands, redirecting their output to files. Just running journalctl without redirecting makes me page through it, which I understand is to help me read it instead of just watching it scroll by. But redirecting the output to a file did just that, without need for interaction. I remember learning that it is possible for Linux programs to know whether they're outputting to a terminal or to a file and apparently journalctl is smart enough. I'll review the output over the weekend, it's way past midnight here in Finland. JIP | Talk 23:29, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

JIP, yes, it's user-friendly to admins who like to use "less". If you really want it to spew the whole log to the terminal all at once, use --no-pager and then I guess you can use the terminal's scrollbar. Elizium23 (talk) 18:08, 17 October 2020 (UTC)