David H. Gutteridge wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> Just wondering if anyone else has encountered some weirdness with the
> gnome2-terminal (2.10.0 is what I'm using), when I open multiple instances
> of it, at random the instance I just opened goes black (while it's initializing)
> and all the others go blank.  If I wait a bit, there's no change, and when I try
> to close the last one I opened, I get prompted to force closure (this is under
> Gnome 2).  After I accept force closure, all the other terminal instances also
> close.  (I'm not talking about tabs within gnome terminal, by the way, I mean
> separate windows.)
> 
> It appears somehow the states of each instance become intertwined, which is
> contrary to what I'd expect.  Not sure why this would be happening, it's
> very annoying.  I'm using 2.1_RC3/i386, by the way.
> 
> Any suggestions would be welcome,
> 
> Dave
> 
> 

It's something to do with utmp_update, it occasionally locks up when a
gnome2-terminal is started. As a result, all gnome2-terminals go blank,
exhibiting the behaviour you've seen. Switching to a console and killing
the hung utmp_update process brings the terminals back to life. I had a
poke around in the code to see if pututxline was being called
incorrectly, as according to the manpage for utmp_update this is the
function that triggers it, but decided to switch back to rxvt instead.

Chris
-- 
One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
                    Chateaubriand (1768-1848)