Skype Developers:

There are several reports in this forum about Skype freezing and completely locking the system. This issue is right now discussed on the LKML (Linux Kernel Mailing List). If you can bring an insight into what may be the cause of the problem your help is very much appreciated.

See http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/10/11/200 for the discussion on the LKML or https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+sourc...6.15/+bug/53216 for the discussion on Ubuntu's bugtracker.

If you for some reason don't want to post to the LKML you can contact me at: gst@sysfrog.org

Hi Günther,

we are puzzled by this no less than you. This seems to happen not only on latest versions, but more often on latest. I personally blame this on audio library we are using (GIPS), but it highly likely that this is a combination of factors on their side and on our side. We are trying to find a proper pattern now, but it seems to be far more easily reproducible for other people.

If you ping me on skype, we'll try to arrange some brainstorming session with you and some other people who have experienced this.

I too have had skype freezing my computer
I use multiple sound cards and skype uses the card 1 - The system appeared to freeze on incoming calls when
I had the ringing directed to card 0
Once I set back to card 1 then no problems

perhaps this helps

I don't think it is because of multiple sound cards. My computer with single sound card has the same problem. This problem is like a bomb in the system. If my skype is not active for some time and someone tries to call me, my system will freeze. It also happens when I call others. I have to abandon my tasks and do cold reboot. I have tried to recompile kernel with better process scheduler, but there's no improvements. I wish it can be solved as soon as possible.

Does the system really hang indefinately?

I've experienced the same symptoms, but after about a minute, the system recovers.

I've the freezing problem at least once a day, and most times my system recovers after 4-6 minutes. Mostly I'm moving the mouse a few times while the machine is frozen, this seems to shorten the freeze. I experienced unresponsiveness of my system for over 15 minutes if I do nothing (no mouse moving). I restarted the machine after that time. (I had no second computer at home to test if it responds to network requests.)

Sten

Hi all

I have the temp freezing bug too. I have noticed on gkrellm that the number of processes seems to jump about 5-6 processes. [I note the number on my frozen desktop vs it unfreezing.] If Ican offer any log files or whatever you wish let me know. I'm disabled and Skype is my phone so it has to work. It doesn't lock in Gentoo but if you don't restart skype after a half hour of no use audio gets choppy on calls. It freezes Mepis 6.0 after a no use periode.
Alvin

I have the same problem, running Kubuntu 6.10 with Skype 1.3.0.53_API on an IBM Thinkpad T42.

It seems to be related to sound and idle time. If I make one call right after another, there is no freeze. If I try to make a call after a long period of idle, the freeze happens. It's a complete hardware freeze (pressing CapsLock during the freeze period does not turn on the CapsLock LED on the laptop) and can last anywhere from a few seconds to about a minute.

The sound connection is because turning off the "incoming IM" sound notification eliminates the system freeze if someone tries to start a chat (again, after a period of Skype idle time).

So turnning off all the sound effects fixed your problem? Wonder why it's just a ubunto mepis thing?
Alvin

I don't experience these problems at all on my computer.

I'm running the latest Skype version, using ALSA 1.0.13, SuSE Linux 10.1, Kernel 2.6.18.2, gcc 4.1.0.

deltatux

I've read through a number of bug reports that have been showing up throughout the internets. So far the community has come up with the following:

* Its not quite clear which yet, but its some combination of having smp and preempt compiled into the kernel. Ubuntu turns both of these on by default. So far, it looks like a kernel bug that is only triggered by skype.

* There has been more than one complaint from the community that skype client includes evil behaviours that make debugging the problem with debuggers difficult if not impossible.

* The bug shows up much more frequently if the sound device(s) used by skype are touched by something non-skype -- particularly esd. Users that either disable esd or disable Skype usually see an end to their problem.

This is a pretty disastrous thing for me. Not only do I not get incoming calls, but I usually don't even get a record that someone tried to call at all. For the few incoming calls that do get logged, those are indecipherable as the client's relativistic listing ("today", "yesterday" and such) is hopelessly confused because the calculation is based upon the current time rather than midnight.

Let us fix the problem so that you can make money from the service This problem is hurting a lot of people that are capable of diagnosing and providing fixes for this problem. Wouldn't it be nice to get some help? It doesn't hurt taking advantage of a free workforce...

I don't think opening up a little bit would hurt the company. The company apparently intends to make money not from phone service but software sales. The company also surely owns the copyright to its own codebase and probably has a zillion patents covering the unique ideas that are present. Any pain that the company did feel would certainly hurt less than encouraging potential long term users to migrate to tools such as asterisk and ekiga...

I know it won't happen. I'm sure that you guys have fought an uphill battle to convince the company to develop for this platform at all. Anyways, thanks and good luck tracing down the bugs. I'll try to hang in there for a bit longer.