Console peaced out?

[Jim Maul]

> On Friday 17 December 2004 15:26, Jim Maul wrote:
>> I am running rh9 on a couple machines at work here.  While i was out
>> sick one day a co-worker logged into one of the machines and did loaded
>> up xwindows (startx).  I (and him) have done this many times in the past
>> without a problem but for some reason when he did it this time, he said
>> that xwindows started loading but then the screen went black and that
>> was it.  I originally thought it might be something with the display
>> settings being out of range for the monitor but it appears that is not
>> the problem.  The machine responds fine (to ping and such) and i can get
>> into it through ssh without and problems but the console appears to be
>> hosed.  The keyboard is unresponsive (i cant even get the numlock light
>> to come on) and the screen is just sitting there black.  It is not a
>> problem with the monitor or anything as i have swapped that out.
>>
>> I tried killing his session to see if it would log him out and return
>> the console to a prompt but that did not happen.  The session ended as
>> it not longer is displayed in top or who but still the console remains
>> black and the keyboard is unresponsive.
>>
>> Is there something that i can kill or run to be able to get the console
>> back?  This machine usually goes 8-10 months before something comes up
>> where it needs to be rebooted and i REALLY dont want to have to reboot
>> it now.  Its serving quite a lot for us here.  And yes, i know you
>> shouldnt really be running x on a console of a server but hey, he did
>> and now its hosed and i gotta deal with it.
>>
>> Does anyone have any ideas or perhaps more info is needed?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> -Jim
>
>   Sometimes when your terminal is behaving strangely, you can try to reset
> it
> to a "reasonable" set of default settings by 'blindly' typing  the
> command:
>
>                   stty sane <enter>
>
> or:
>
>                CTRL-J
>                stty sane
>                CTRL-J
>
> (CTRL-J is interpreted as a carriage-return, in case <enter> is also
> unresponsive)
>
>                             Best,
>
>                             Tom
>

I'll try this but i wont have console access until monday.  I'll report
back monday.

-
Jim