init: prefdm respawning too fast, stopped

[Binford]

I get this after performing an upgrade to F9 from F8. I have now logged in and done a yum update as well to finish off, rebooted and still get:

init: prefdm main process (###) terminated with status 1
init: prefdm main process respawning too fast, respawning
(REPEAT previous two lines 9 more times)
init: prefdm respawning too fast, stopped

The box is at a login, and I can login fine, just can't start X.

I grabbed the latest NVIDIA driver (169.12 I think) and and run it, and when it tired to compile the driver, pukes and ends. Never had a rpolem beforee with it. Any ideas?

Thanks.

[stephanepoirier]

Hi,

I have the same problem except it is after an upgrade from fc7 to fc10. Did you find any solutions to yours?

Stephane

[kpj104]

sounds like a problem with /etc/inittab possibly.... can you post?

[stephanepoirier]

Thanks for your help! But I actually found the solution/workaround renaming my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old (inspired by this previously seen problem here described below).

Steph


In FC10 also saw: "prefdm respawning too fast, stopped"
Hi, I just upgraded from FC7 (yes, I'm slow to upgrade but FC7 worked fine), and saw a similar set of messages at the end of booting:
init: prefdm main process (nnnn) terminated with status 1
init: prefdm main process ended, respawning

a whole bunch of these then

init: prefdm respawning too fast, stopped

--------
This was very disheartening, then I checked that Samba worked, Apache worked and my subversion repository/server worked. At this point I figured it was an X11 related thing.

After much digging into X11, various foras and such the solution (for my case) was that in the upgrade (I think) my old /etc/X11/xorg.conf file was somehow preserved. I tried moving this to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old (just in case I needed to get it back) and the GUI came up fine after that.

Greg

[vallimar]

The problem is that Xorg is crashing, and since you are in runlevel 5, prefdm continues
to try and respawn, just as if it were mingetty. Look at your X logs in /var/log to determine
what is causing X to crash and fix it to return to normal. Often, it's a video driver issue.

[Iheartcvs]

I am getting this message also on stating up in to Fedora10 (after upgrading from Fedora4). Can someone tell me how I can exit this message to get to the login?

Is there a key combination to enter to get past this message?
Thanks.

(radeon 9600 video card installed on the machine)

[stephanepoirier]

My newly installed fc10 upgrade not making it the login prompt problem was solved using installation disc for rebooting in rescue mode, renaming /etc/X11/xorg.conf to /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old and finally rebooting without problem.

xorg.conf was containing an invalid graphic card driver. Renaming it kicked out that invalid driver and made X11 happy!

Stephane

[Iheartcvs]

I ended up using a bootable Linux (LNX-BBC) disk to log into the machine/mount the drive and change rename the /etc/X11/xorg.conf.old and it worked. The installation disk would have been easier probably.

It works now! Thanks.

[Bluegreen]

I ran into this also after upgrading from F7 to F10. I booted into run level 1, so I could rename the file.