Strange init 3 behavior,

[Jeff Vian]

On Wed, 2005-08-31 at 08:31 -0400, Robert Locke wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-08-30 at 06:38 -0500, akonstam at trinity.edu wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 29, 2005 at 06:15:54PM -0400, Bob Chiodini wrote:
> > > On Mon, 2005-08-29 at 16:31 -0500, akonstam at trinity.edu wrote: 
> > > >   Has any one seen this behavior on FC4 systems, and know what to do about
> > > >  it?
> > > > 
> > > >  You go into a text terminal and wan to change to
> > > >  init level 3, so you execute the command init 3. The machine hangs. (more about
> > > >  this later)
> > > >  
> > > >  So just to try something you enter init 1 instead of init 3. The machine
> > > >  goes to init level 1. Aha you say. I know what to do and you type init 3
> > > >  The machine not to be bested by a mere user changes to init
> > > >  level 5.
> > > >  
> > > >  A kind of work around>
> > > > 
> > > >  If you go into a terminal and you  type init 3 and it
> > > >  hangs in various places depending on how long you wait and whether you hit
> > > >  return. Now you hit ctrl-alt-f7 the screen goes black. You then hit
> > > >  ctl-alt-f1 and eureka you are in init level 3. Is that obscure enough a
> > > >  procedure for you. I tried this on three  machines and it worked
> > > >  every time.
> > > >  
> > > >  What is happening here? Does any one know?
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > -- 
> > > 
> > > Aaron,
> > > 
> > > Does hitting return in the virtual terminal return a prompt after you
> > > enter runlevel 3?
> > > 
> > > I have seen what you describe on FC3.  I think the prompt after typing
> > > init 3 is getting lost.  I just reproduced it on an x86_64 machine and I
> > > see on an i386 machine as well.  Maybe a bug report is in order.
> > > 
> > > Bob...
> > No prompt is returned.  The machine has hung.  However, I think what
> > you are describing is the behavior on earlier versions. When you ran
> > init 3 some lines appeared but after the line anacron appeared you had
> > to hit return to get the prompt.
> > 
> > In out case , either the screen goes black and hangs or sometimes you
> > get as far as the line anacron but hitting return does nothing.
> > 
> > -- 
> 
> Hey Aaron,
> 
> Two things come to mind on this....
> 
> 1) Are we really, really sure it is "hung"?  Sometimes with the death of
> X, it leaves me on tty7, and simply hitting Ctrl-Alt-F1 or Ctrl-Alt-F2
> brings me to my text based login prompt.
> 
> 2) I thought I remembered reading something about one or more of the X
> video drivers causing problems going back and forth to text mode virtual
> consoles.  Perhaps trying a "more generic" video driver in your X
> configuration (system-config-display - Hardware Tab).
> 
> Of course, another test would be to try to connect to the machine
> remotely after dropping it to runlevel 3 - you could try ssh'ing into it
> to test whether it is truly hung or just a console thing...
> 
> HTH,
> 
> --Rob
> 

As I see it, ctrl-alt-F7 is the graphics console and has no definition
in runlevel 3.

I have seen the same behavior as was reported where the console seemed
to 'hang' when switching to runlevel 3 from runlevel 5.  The simple
expediency of using ctrl-alt-F2 gets me to a text console, and sure
enough I find that the X windows system is not running.

I put the 'problem' down to the fact that it is the terminal definition
that goes away as X gets shutdown but the console is still set to a now
undefined terminal.  Switching to a terminal that is defined (F1 - F6)
gets me past that every time.