HAL errors?

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Kazibam

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Hi,

I used advance mode to try to install some programs for Linux. I installed VLC, Konversation, Xchat, Ktorrent, AMSN, and azureus few others. Then, I uninstalled a few of them (XChat , Azureus and AMSN). Now, everytime I boot up, I get a HAL initialization error! Is there a way I can fix this besides doing a restore since I don't have an external CD drive.
 
Unfortunately, the only other posting here that specifically mentions HAL errors is Windows related: link.

Otherwise, you might try referring to the wider community: either Yahoo!Answers or Google, of course.

Ephraim Tutt takes on the cases no one else wants.
 
I have the same error, except for me, I hadn't installed anything and only had the machine for about 2 weeks. The trackpad just died on me and I restarted it and then I got this:
Internal Error, failed to initialize HAL!

8gb/512mb. Linpus lite

It happened to me while traveling, it was a huge pain. I called acer's tech support and they told me to reinstall the os (using the cd of course). I had to explain that my laptop didn't have one, that was the first sign that i was in trouble. Anyway, today I used a flash drive to reinstall linpus and the first thing to pop on my screen was the error message.

Every once in a while, I don't get the message and I can use it normally. On those rare times, I just leave it running. Other forums mention this problem, but they seem to be specific to their machines.

Has anyone else had this problem using their Aspire One?
 
I had this happen on two occasions, the first when I changed the xfce init script to run xfdesktop-xfce but didn't add a line to start xfce-mcs-manager.new, and the other when I had some configuration corruption, which was solved by deleting the /home/user/.config/xfce directory and allowing it to be recreated on next boot. Both times this error didn't cause any harm by the way, simply acknowledging the dialog box and continuing to use the machine everything still worked so not sure if it's really that much of a worry.
 
Interesting thread - I have had two occasions where my AA1 has just gone plain crazy - the first time was a few weeks ago when the touch pad and keyboard stopped working, which kinda screwed me big time! When this happened I gave up trying to work round the problem and re-installed everything from a recovery USB stick made from the supplied CD.

Today, I suddenly lost the ability to start a terminal session, the wireless stopped working, sound system said there were no plugins loaded for it and when I shut the lid it would not standby. I really didn't want to do another reinstall so I had a poke around and tried a few reboots - on occasions I would get a HAL error and then found this thread. With nothing to lose, I tried deleting the /home/user/.config/xfce4 folder (through 'my files', which was still working), rebooted and, lo, everything is working again! Even my customised desktop is still there, which implies that the system must make a backup of the config folder to restore in an emergency?

It seems that the config folder is very delicate and problems happen very quickly if it (or a file in it) are corrupted - yet I have only been doing 'normal' stuff on the AA1 - checking email, browsing etc. The only radical app I have been running is the Twinkle VoIP phone (which worked very well via wifi in a hotel room).

It may not be a solution for everyone, but with a knackered system and faced with a reinstall, perhaps deleting the xfce4 folder is worth considering?
 
Good to hear it worked for you linker, and sorry about leaving the '4' off, I can never remember which commands and directories have the 4 and which don't under xfce. The files in that folder do seem to be very touchy, removing it has also fixed issues for me when the desktop refused to start, leaving me with just the panel. I was able to run xfdesktop-xfce from a terminal and it all worked fine, just wouldn't start on boot. So yes, it seems if you are getting weird problems, removing the directory seems to be a common fix. As to why this happens, I have my suspicions that the write cache on the SSD isn't always flushed to disk on shutdown/restart, as sometimes if I edit a file and then reboot immediately, the file will be back in its previous state on reboot. If the machine is writing to some of the config files, with part of the write still cached and is then rebooted/powered off, perhaps that is leading to corruption?
 
linker3000 said:
Today, I suddenly lost the ability to start a terminal session, the wireless stopped working, sound system said there were no plugins loaded for it and when I shut the lid it would not standby. I really didn't want to do another reinstall so I had a poke around and tried a few reboots - on occasions I would get a HAL error and then found this thread. With nothing to lose, I tried deleting the /home/user/.config/xfce4 folder (through 'my files', which was still working), rebooted and, lo, everything is working again! Even my customised desktop is still there, which implies that the system must make a backup of the config folder to restore in an emergency?
Click to expand...

This is typical Linux behavior. Think of the . (dot) files as being similar to the Windows registry, except of course they're all text files and easy to edit with a simple text editor.

When a new user is added to a Linux system, a home directory is created for that user and all the required dot files are placed in this new home directory. If some program starts misbehaving, there's a good chance that it's config file hidden in a dot file in your home directory has somehow got mangled or corrupted. Removing the dot directory or file will cause the program to rebuild a new default one from scratch.

In the case of the default dot (files/directories) in your home directory, these files are stored in the /etc/skel directory. You have to set your filemanager to show hidden files to see them. If you remove say .config from your home directory, the next time you boot, Linux will see it's missing and copy over the original one from the /etc/skel directory. Neat, hey? :-)

Cheers.
 
Hi after switching to the xfce desktop I was getting HAL errors unless I used GDM as the boot screen. I guessed it was something not starting up at the correct time and I've been tweaking my startup times. As a side effect of this tuning the HAL errors on normal "fast boot" have now gone away.
I need to sort out a proper diff and list the changes to my startup files (other thread: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3275), but a temporary fix is to use the gdm boot manger to login first: (http://jorge.ulver.no/2008/08/06/acer-a ... gautologin)
 
Because hal daemon not ready yet when application need it. In my situation, because this problem network manager, battery indicator and logout button stop working. My advice, do not call xfdesktop-xfce directry from /etc/xdg/xfce4-session/xfce4-session.rc but call it from /usr/bin/xfdesktopnew. If still get this error change sleep value in /usr/bin/xfdesktopnew from 5 to 10. This trick will slowdown your boot time but better slow but works ;)
 
Yes but I've gone the other way! :) I've got my boot down to 8 seconds and got rid of the HAL errors. :D
 
Thanks guys, deleting the xfce directory stopped the Hal errors. I always heard good things about the Linux community, It's good to know it wasn't all talk.
 
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