X server not restarting with ctrl-alt-backspace

[jaredhanks]

Sometimes, not all the time, X won't restart when I press ctrl-alt-backspace. When it doesn't restart it will go back to a character screen and the gui screen has a blinking cursor. I haven't been able to replicate this enough to figure out what is causing it. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks.

[nature]

I always thought using ctrl-alt-backspace would kill the X server and take you to the command line.(and hence you could restart X)

When it doesn't restart it will go back to a character screen and the gui screen has a blinking cursor

can you describe that...
the gui screen has a blinking cursor?...so does X server hang?

[jaredhanks]

Sorry, should have been more clear...the X server hangs (which is why I think I get the blinking cursor). I am able to kill the PID and X starts over (I haven't tried killx, which might work), but is there anyway to make sure it doesn't hang?

After looking at the .xsession-errors I noticed:

Waiting for component to die -- OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Mail_ShellComponent (1)
Waiting for component to die -- OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Mail_ShellComponent (1)
Waiting for component to die -- OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Calendar_ShellComponent (1)

Maybe Evolution is hanging up X???

[nature]

ctrl-alt-backspace would not kill X server gracefully,so you might have a problem with some applications not closing down.Evolution in your case...
but ctrl-alt-backspace is meant to do that....(kill X abruptly)
would try to find more about that..

regards

[KenJackson]

My preferred method is CTRL-ALT-F1, to get to a console, login as root, and type:
# service dm stop

(You could also do: /etc/init.d/dm stop)

Sometimes I get an error message which I forget, but is something like "dead but locked". That means the process is stopped, but the /var/lock/subsys/dm file was not deleted. So I delete the lock file.