Solved All processes sleeping since running Avast Cleanup in Windows 10

K

KenGordon

Well, wonder of wonders (I should have expected this) today I ran Avast Cleanup on my Win10 install, which is on a separate HDD from my FreeBSD install.

When I then fired up FreeBSD, intending to do some more work on that system, after logging in as my normal, non-root user, and starting X, and my MATE desktop, I find that any previously working application I attempt to use will no longer run.

Checking processes, I find all those listed as "sleeping" and only one system process is running.

Has anyone run into something like this? If so, what did you do to correct this?

Is there a way to switch a process from "sleeping" to "running"?

I hate Windows

Ken
 
There's obviously some misinterpretation involved here as "running" is a pretty exceptional state for most processes. Especially interactive programs spend practically all the (real) time blocked, because they wait for some I/O.
 
zirias@ said:
There's obviously some misinterpretation involved here as "running" is a pretty exceptional state for most processes. Especially interactive programs spend practically all the (real) time blocked, because they wait for some I/O
Click to expand...
OK. That makes sense.

I also found that not ALL processes are sleeping. Several are not. Yet when I try to start an application which has been previously working, instead of starting almost instantly as it did previously, it takes many more seconds before anything happens, the application never shows up on the desktop, and eventually the "timer" simply quits.

Then when checking the status of processes, I see a process for that application listed as "sleeping".

Since this happened, I then installed Chromium (which I really don't care for) and it is working correctly.

To make the situation a bit more clear here, I am trying to build a system based on FreeBSD to enable me to switch the other 5 computers in our home as far away from Windows' stuff as possible, yet the system must be useable by the computo-klutzes in our family. I am the only one in our immediate family who has been an IT Professional (for +30 years). I want my wife to be able to use a system that is as familiar to her as possible. I am 81 BTW.

Ken
 
Well....I can start these applications from the command line, although they take "longer" to start....

Ken
 
Specifically, when I start Firefox from the command-line, errors show up in the terminal display.

This is interesting, kinda weird, and annoying as heck.

Ken
 
Good old FreeBSD: it appears that FreeBSD corrected what ever the problem was, since things are back to working now.

Even so, I would like to figure out what happened.

Ken
 
Did you ever ascertain what the issue was. I had rebooted my FreeBSD VM last night and now I am experiencing similar issues where some applications fail to launch or they start and then fail. I am running FreeBSD 14p4 with the MATE desktop in a VM running on Proxmox. I use XRDP to get to the desktop environment and the desktop 'loads' and the MATE start menu functions but several applications fail to launch of you click them. However, it is not all applications, just some. For instance Firefox, Mate-terminal and Caja fail to launch if you click them. In the case of Caja, the icons on the desktop for the home folder will launch Caja but if I try the Caja icon in the tray or in the start menu, it wont. Firefox doesn't launch but Chromium does. I also have the linux layer enabled and I can run the Brave and Google browser.

When I bring up the Mate-monitor application I can see the failed applications sitting in a sleeping state, much like what you saw.

I suspect it is a recent pkg update that I ran yesterday but I have no idea what the offending package would be. I did a pkg update -f to reinstall all packages in the event a dependency was at fault but that still hasn't resolved the issue.

You mentioned that it seems to have self corrected. I have left my VM running overnight but nothing has corrected on its own.
 
Hello. No. I did not figure out what had happened. I had exactly the same experiences as you have: Caja, Firefox, the Mate Terminal, and I cannot now remember all the others which failed to start. When attempting to start some apps, say, Firefox, the system took a long time to do anything, then simply quit. As you did, I then accessed Mate's system-monitor, it showed all of those apps I tried to start as sleeping.

I then installed Chrome, to see if I could get a working browser so I could access this forum. Chromium installed without errors, and when I tried to fire it up, it came right up. Then I posted to the forum.

After that, I tried to start Firefox from the command line and it started immediately.

Not knowing what to do, I then shut the system down shutdown -r now. then booted back into WIndows10 to see if there were any messages complaining about anything. There were none.

Then I booted back into my FreeBSD system. It seemed to take a bit longer to boot into the system than it normally does, and when I then tried the apps which had failed to load earlier, they all came up almost instantly.

I could only assume that FreeBSD repaired whatever the Windows' app, Avast Clean Up, damaged.

I suggest you shut your system down, then re-boot into it to see if doing that fixes the problem with the apps not starting.

I could find no other problems with my system once I had re-booted into it.

Please let us know what happens on your system.

My system consists of a home-built computer, using, in this case, a later model Asus motherboard, an Intel CPU, 16 GB of RAM, and at least 3 HDDs, a 500 GB drive for WIndows10, a 160 GB drive for an old install of WinXP on which there is at least one app (Generic CAD) which will not run in Win10, and a 2TB drive on which I installed FreeBSD-13.2 RELEASE. I switch to the HDD I want at boot time. I have been building computers since about 1970 and see no reason to stop doing that now.

Ken
 
I would like to add that although I worked at the University of Idaho for over 30 years and was, among other things, a SYSAD using both FreeBSD and HP-UX, I was never very good at UNIX. I consider myself to be still a noob at this. I have always really liked UNIX of whatever flavor, but have never been able to devote the time needed to really learn it. I am 81 now and do have at least some time to devote to it. I am attempting to build a FreeBSD -based system for all the computers in our home, 6 of them at last count, to enable all of us to dump BIlly Gates' garbage. And since I am the only one in our home who is computer-savy, any system I build must be as familiar as possible for the computo-klutzes here. :)

Ken
 
Oh. One more bit of information which may help figure this out: my issues with FreeBSD started almost instantly after I had run Avast's Clean Up maintenance program from within Win10. That software looks for and "fixes" many HDD issues. It also deletes "unnecessary files", like old data files, old log files, old setup files, etc.

I believe in my case, that that software also accessed and "cleaned up" my FreeBSD HDD.

I believe this is so since Windows does not respect any other operating system but its own....which is another reason I have never liked WIndows.

Ken
 
Thanks. Yeah, I've rebooted several times to no avail. I suspect a shared library was updated that is causing the conflict but my sleuthing to find the offending library isn't my strong suit.
 
OK. Have you tried to run one of your sleeping programs from the command-line?

Fire up a terminal, and, NOT as root, type "firefox", then enter. See if that starts. Then report back here, please. I'm not very good at finding a needed library either.

Ken
 
This morning I applied a slew of updates that were available and rebooted. Apparently one of the updates corrected the issue as I'm back in business, all apps are functioning correctly.
 
Congratulations. Well, I didn't have to do that here, but maybe the system did it for me. Anyway, everything here is also working as it should.

Ken
 
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