I need help troubleshooting " respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes."

[Dapper Dan]

I've got CRUX 2.3 on my home machine and have had 2.4 and 2.5 but recently deleted them. All have worked well for me on this machine. Recently I installed CRUX 2.6. The installation went without a hitch as did the kernel compile. Now though, I'm running into problems when trying to boot the new install...

Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: md: Waiting for all devices to be available before autodetect
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: md: If you don't use raid, use raid=noautodetect
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: md: Scanned 0 and added 0 devices.
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: md: autorun ...
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: md: ... autorun DONE.
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: REISERFS (device sda5): found reiserfs format "3.6" with standard journal
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: REISERFS (device sda5): using ordered data mode
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: REISERFS (device sda5): journal params: device sda5, size 8192, journal first block 18, ma
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: REISERFS (device sda5): checking transaction log (sda5)
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: REISERFS (device sda5): Using r5 hash to sort names
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: VFS: Mounted root (reiserfs filesystem) readonly on device 8:5.
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: Freeing unused kernel memory: 268k freed
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: usb 3-1: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: usb 3-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: input: Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mouse as /class/input/input0
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: generic-usb 0003:046D:C00E.0001: input: USB HID v1.10 Mouse [Logitech USB-PS/2 Optical Mou
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: usb 6-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: usb 6-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: usblp0: USB Bidirectional printer dev 2 if 0 alt 1 proto 2 vid 0x03F0 pid 0x1011
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: usb 7-2: new low speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 2
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: usb 7-2: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: input: DELL DELL USB Keyboard as /class/input/input1
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: generic-usb 0003:413C:2005.0002: input: USB HID v1.10 Keyboard [DELL DELL USB Keyboard] on
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: scsi 8:0:0:0: Direct-Access     TEAC     USB   HS-CF Card 4.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: scsi 8:0:0:1: Direct-Access     TEAC     USB   HS-xD/SM   4.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: scsi 8:0:0:2: Direct-Access     TEAC     USB   HS-MS Card 4.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: sd 8:0:0:1: [sdc] Attached SCSI removable disk
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: scsi 8:0:0:3: Direct-Access     TEAC     USB   HS-SD Card 4.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: sd 8:0:0:2: [sdd] Attached SCSI removable disk
Jan 12 15:20:59 roughdogs kernel: sd 8:0:0:3: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
Jan 12 15:22:38 roughdogs init: Id "c3" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
Jan 12 15:22:38 roughdogs init: Id "c5" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
Jan 12 15:22:38 roughdogs init: Id "c6" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
Jan 12 15:22:38 roughdogs init: Id "c4" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
Jan 12 15:22:38 roughdogs init: Id "c2" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
Jan 12 15:22:38 roughdogs init: Id "c1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes
Jan 12 15:22:38 roughdogs init: no more processes left in this runlevel

Here's my /etc/inittab for good measure:

#
# /etc/inittab: system runlevel description
#

# Runlevels:
#  0    Halt
#  1(S) Single-user
#  2    Multi-user
#  3-5  Not used
#  6    Reboot

id:2:initdefault:

rc::sysinit:/etc/rc
rs:S1:wait:/etc/rc.single
rm:2:wait:/etc/rc.multi
rd:06:wait:/etc/rc.shutdown
su:S:wait:/sbin/sulogin -p

c1:2:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty1 linux
c2:2:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty2 linux
c3:2:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty3 linux
c4:2:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty4 linux
c5:2:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty5 linux
c6:2:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 tty6 linux
#s1:2:respawn:/sbin/agetty 38400 ttyS0 vt100

ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -t3 -r now

# End of file

I've been Googling for help but so far have come up empty. I would greatly appreciate any help to get me moving again.

Thanks!

[MikeTbob]

Try this link Dan, it talks about editing the lines in inittab
GNU/Linux - Installing Gentoo GNU/Linux 2004.3 on SPARC - Part 6 - Initial Logon
Hopefully it'll get you going in the right direction... or at least allow you to continue with the next step.

[Dapper Dan]

Thanks Mike. I commented those lines and the boot still stops cold right after "services." I re-installed two more times since writing this and still the same thing. It always stops dead cold right after services. No prompt or anything. 2.3 through 2.5 all ran perfectly on this very same machine after installation. I don't why this is happening now. The only thing I can think of is that they've changed how something is done in the kernel or something. This is really getting annoying...

Could it be possible that there is something screwy with the install disk and something isn't getting installed properly?

[Jonathan183]

Don't know if it's the install media thats the issue ... but have you tried init=/bin/bash as kernel parameter to see if you can boot to a prompt?

[reed9]

Some more troubleshooting help: Text-Terminals on Linux - 18.6 ... respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

In my un-educated guess, what does your /etc/rc.multi script look like? The error is looks like it's happening there.

Are you able to boot into single user mode?

[oz]

To more or less go along with what has already been said, you have an error in the inittab file according to the Linux From Scratch FAQ:

init: Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

When you see, in your syslogs, this line:
init: Id "1" respawning too fast: disabled for 5 minutes

It means you have an error in the /etc/inittab line beginning with the given id ("1" in this example).

That link posted above by reed9 looks very helpful.

[Dapper Dan]

Thanks guys. That gave me some leads though I'm afraid I'm still stuck. I'm up to five fresh installs and this thing just won't resolve. reed9, that article you linked got me thinking it might be a kernel configuration issue. I thought perhaps the 2.6.30 kernel is doing something differently than previous versions but I've recompiled the kernel three times using different configurations of what I thought might remedy the problem but still no dice.

I'm now going to nuke and pave and re-install 2.5. If it installs, that suggests there is just some configuration in the new release that isn't compatible with my hardware and frankly it has beaten me. If 2.5 installs, I'll see if I can do a simple upgrade to 2.6 from the install CD. If after upgrading, the issue reappears, I'll just go back to 2.5, upgrade to the latest kernel and wait for 2.7. I've had some real head scratchers in the past but this one is the mother of them all.

I'll report back what happens. Again, than you MikeTbob, Jonathan183, reed9 and ozar for your assistance.

[Jonathan183]

I was thinking check you can boot to a prompt and then add things until it breaks ... but that could be a long process - but since you have other options .

[Dapper Dan]

Installed and booted 2.5 without problems! This is so strange that the latest version hates my setup! The only thing I can figure is that there is a change in how the kernel is handling something over the way it was handled before as I'm using the exact same .config with both. I just don't have time to deal with problems this time consuming right now so I'll just do with 2.5 and perhaps do some investigating about it. Never run into anything quite like this before with CRUX. Thanks everyone!