Kiosk Locking or Freezing Randomly

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slammers
White ninja
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Posts: 6
Joined: 18 Jul 2019, 17:25
Distribution: 4.8.0

Kiosk Locking or Freezing Randomly

Post#1 by slammers » 18 Jul 2019, 18:24

Hello,

I found this kiosk software a few months back while looking for just a simple Linux distro that would boot up into a browser opening a specific page. I configured and created the image on a single station on our plant floor. It ran flawlessly for 2 months with no issues.

Since then, we've swapped out all of the Windows stations which essentially just open Chrome on boot, then go to the designated page. The Windows stations ran fine for 2 years or so without any issues, but were a lot to manage with updates, etc. Currently we have 110 Porteus Kiosk stations on the plant floor that are being used to display instructions for part builds. About once a day, a station just locks up. It seems pretty random but there have been a few times where the same station repeats the lock up. The stations are HP Prodesk 400 G3, Intel Core i5 Gen 7, 4GB RAM with 500GB drives. The config is pretty simple. I have a png wallpaper file configured for startup, a couple static aliases, VNC, SSH and homepage set up for Chrome. We run a just in time process and really don't have time to troubleshoot when the problems occur, but unplugging the station to reboot will fix the problem. I have taken a station that seemed to have repeated problems and replaced it with another known good station and so far there have been no problems. I then took the "bad" station, re-imaged it, then deployed it into another location and have not had problems with that one either.

I recently converted an Intel Stick from Windows to Porteus Kiosk that I was using to display a PRTG monitoring page. I set that up and a few hours later the system would lock up. I set the /var/log folder as persistent to try to catch anything in the messages log. The persistent logging worked but there was nothing in the log to indicate a reason for the system locking up. I've updated the system BIOS and tried the 3 month trial update, hoping that the updated browser or kernel would fix whatever was going on. A few hours after that ran, it locked up again. To try something new, I used Firefox on that same Intel Stick and it ran all night with no problems.

What I can't figure out is why Chrome ran flawless for years in Windows, but seems to have issues with Linux. I have enabled kernel debugging and the persistent /var/log folder on that Intel Stick and am currently waiting for it to freeze. At this point we have developers that frequently use the developer tools in Chrome, so we would prefer to not switch to Firefox if that would be a fix.

Has anyone come across this problem with 4.8.0 with or without updates? Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

Scott

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fanthom
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Kiosk Locking or Freezing Randomly

Post#2 by fanthom » 18 Jul 2019, 20:58

Scott,

Please generate debug report on your hardware (i hope its all the same PC model?) and send it to support@porteus-kiosk.org.
Will start from there ....

Thanks
Please add [Solved] to your thread title if the solution was found.

slammers
White ninja
White ninja
Posts: 6
Joined: 18 Jul 2019, 17:25
Distribution: 4.8.0

Kiosk Locking or Freezing Randomly

Post#3 by slammers » 19 Jul 2019, 13:32

E-mail sent with the log files.

Thanks

jsandoval10
Ronin
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Posts: 2
Joined: 30 Aug 2022, 19:10
Distribution: Porteus

Kiosk Locking or Freezing Randomly

Post#4 by jsandoval10 » 30 Aug 2022, 19:47

Hello,
I am having the same issues with a large distribution of devices out in production. Did you ever hear back from Porteus for possible solutions?

Thanks!

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fanthom
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Kiosk Locking or Freezing Randomly

Post#5 by fanthom » 31 Aug 2022, 06:25

Hello jsandoval10,

Please do as follows:

1) enable full persistence for logs:
persistence=/var/log

2) recreate the freezing issue at least 2 times

3) send /var/log/messages to support@porteus-kiosk.org and link to this forum thread

Thanks
Please add [Solved] to your thread title if the solution was found.

jsandoval10
Ronin
Ronin
Posts: 2
Joined: 30 Aug 2022, 19:10
Distribution: Porteus

Kiosk Locking or Freezing Randomly

Post#6 by jsandoval10 » 31 Aug 2022, 17:38

Fanthom,
Is that line simply added in the porteus configuration file? Or is there a more detailed forum where I can follow instructions?

Thanks

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fanthom
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Kiosk Locking or Freezing Randomly

Post#7 by fanthom » 31 Aug 2022, 18:30

Its a parameter which you add to the kiosk config:
https://porteus-kiosk.org/parameters.html#persistence

Thanks
Please add [Solved] to your thread title if the solution was found.

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