Yast2 or ncurses issue?

[jaapengel79]

Hi,

I'm kind of new when it comes to Linux.. especially when it comes to troubleshooting.

The following has occured which I need some help with:

I installed SuSE Enterprise Server 9 SP3 64-bit on a Dell Poweredge 6850 machine. No problems there; all went smoothly.

For the past few days since installation we can use the server without problems. Now, since yesterday morning Yast2 stopped functioning.

When I start Yast (we don't use X !) I get a blank screen; nothing seems to happen. When I CTRL-Z and 'fg', we only see the titlebar (Yast2 @ <servername> press F1 for Help) and nothing more.

Haven't tried MC yet (it's not installed since nobody uses it on the server; and we want to keep it as lean as possible) but I have the feeling ncurses may be at fault, or perhaps terminal settings are changed without me knowing it.

Is there any way, without having to reinstall Yast2 and all it's RPM's (since we have to use SP3 CD's and originals back and forth.. it's a hassle) to make Yast work again? It'd make life much easier!

By the way, the .pid file is created in /var/run, the actual process runs as well, all seems to work except for screen output.

 

[jaapengel79]

2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [liby2] genericfrontend.cc(main):133 Launched YaST2 component 'y2base'
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [wfm] Y2WFMComponent.cc(SetLanguage):424 GET encoding for en_US: ISO-8859-1
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [wfm] Y2WFMComponent.cc(import):579 Y2WFMComponent::import (Desktop)
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [wfm] Y2WFMComponent.cc(import):579 Y2WFMComponent::import (Map)
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [wfm] Y2WFMComponent.cc(import):579 Y2WFMComponent::import (String)
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [wfm] Y2WFMComponent.cc(import):579 Y2WFMComponent::import (Label)
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [wfm] Y2WFMComponent.cc(import):579 Y2WFMComponent::import (Popup)
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [wfm] Y2WFMComponent.cc(import):579 Y2WFMComponent::import (Mode)
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [wfm] Y2CCScript.cc(createInLevel):157 Parsing finished
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] Y2CCNCursesUI.h(create):60 Creating ncurses component
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [liby2] genericfrontend.cc(main):422 YAST_IS_RUNNING is yes
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] YNCursesUI.cc(YNCursesUI):72 Start YNCursesUI
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ncurses] YNCursesUI.cc(YNCursesUI):88 setenv LC_CTYPE: en_US encoding: ISO-8859-1
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ncurses] NCstring.cc(setTerminalEncoding):457 Terminal encoding SET to: ISO-8859-1
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(init):190 Launch NCurses...(ui-ncurses-2.9.29)
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(init):195 TERM=vt220
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(init):203 isatty: stdout-yes stderr-yes
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(init):210 mytty: /dev/pts/4
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(init):225 no term so fall back to initscr
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(init):230 have color = 0
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(init):245 screen size 43 x 125
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCstyle.cc(NCstyle):308 Init vt220 using bw => 4 styles in mono
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ncurses] NCurses.cc(SetTitle):459 Draw title called
2006-09-13 10:50:16 <1> d-apcap2(12342) [ui-ncurses] NCurses.cc(init):258 NCurses ready

This is the .y2log of my testing user (someone advised me to create a new user and try Yast from that account). Still no joy; blank screen.

 

[jaapengel79]

Nobody? Still haven't figured this issue out yet..

 

[QatQat]

If you can see the titlebar then ncurses should already be working.

I think you have issues with yast.

QatQat




Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

 

[jaapengel79]

@QatQat:

Yes, obviously, but I'm trying to find out what kind of issues I've been erasing and re-installing Yast quite a few times (after encountering these issues, not before!) to no avail.

 

[Annihilannic]

I take it you have no support contract with Novell/SuSE?

Have you tried strace to see what the YaST process is doing when it gets stuck?

Annihilannic.

 

[jaapengel79]

@Annihilannic:

Correct, since this is the first production server running Linux, a support contract was not yet set up. Besides, the server was 'given' to us by the supplier for evaluation purposes (hoping obviously that we'd buy more of their machines) and [whine] they didn't even throw in a support contract [/whine]

Strace.. hmm.. sounds like a plan. I believe a colleague already tried and couldn't come up with much, but I'll see what I can find. Thanks!

 

[jaapengel79]

This issue seems to be resolved! We've had some new Linux servers come in recently, and I discovered -by coincidence- that the order of installation of the packages near the end of the installation generates some kind of conflict...

Easiest solution: document the correct order of installation, and NEVER deviate from that!

Hard solution: find out what package is conflicting, and why..

The error happens somewhere during the installation of the following packages:

X (XFree86 and it's dependencies)
Java (JRE 1.4.2, no SDK)
sapinit.rpm (comes with SuSE 9 Enterprise Server)
Libaio (Asynchronous IO library, devel not needed).

If we change something in the order stated above, Yast will cease to function..