# hald not working

## spankmeister7

I'm using Lynx. Hoo-ray.

After a large system update, I no longer have a working mouse and keyboard so when I log into (what would be a shiny new KDE4) desktop I can't use anything or exit properly.

At startup, I noted that HALD fails to start with the message, "ERROR: hald failed to start."

Looking in /var/log/messages just repeats the obvious.

I read here in the forums to change -O3 in my CFLAGS to -O2 and then re-emerge DBUS, HAL, and GLIBC. I've done all of this without success. I also ran revdep-rebuild and it completed without squaking too much.

I'm trying to get more info, but when I run /etc/init.d/hald -v start, it doesn't report anything with any more verbosity.

The version of hal that installed is 0.5.13-r2 if that helps at all.

Harumph.

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## Ahenobarbi

Press 'i' during boot and skip xdm. Then you should have a usable console. Use it to revdep-rebuild or somehow else fix hald.

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## slackline

When you start hald manually is it running afterwards?

You can check with

```

/etc/init.d/hald -v restart

ps -A | grep hal

```

slack

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## spankmeister7

I can't get hald to start at any time. I tried not starting xdm in interactive mode, but hald still fails to start. I have a working console. A working TEXT console. Hence, my usage of Lynx.

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## Ahenobarbi

Try setting -O2 in your C/CXXLAGS ( if you are using some other flag) and reemerge glib and hal (aparently this helped some people: https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=273111). If it doesn't help you try setting HALD_VERBOSE="yes" in /etc/conf.d/hald. Then please post /var/log/syslog and emerge --info.

---

Also you can try INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" ( no evdev) or manually configuring X. I guess beeing able to use you machine is more important then managing devices in the fashionable way  :Smile: 

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## VoidMage

What messages do get into the log (not xorg - hal or system) when hal fails to start ?

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## Elv13

Compile xserver with -hal. I had similar problem and I ended up dropping hal and unmerge it. Everything work better without HALD.

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## spankmeister7

 *Elv13 wrote:*   

> Compile xserver with -hal. I had similar problem and I ended up dropping hal and unmerge it. Everything work better without HALD.

 

Okay. I was briefly able to get to a desktop by uninstalling hald, recompiling xorg-server without hal in the make.conf file.

I noticed that K3B wouldn't work right away as it seems to depend on hal to use the optical drive.

I ran revdep-rebuild, and sure enough it re-emerged hal and now I'm back to the beginning with only a text console and using Lynx.

/var/log/messages doesn't show anything except "ERROR: hald failed to start."

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## spankmeister7

Okay, maybe this is more helpful. I found that if I run "hald --verbose=yes --daemon=no --retain-privileges" I get all kinds of information. More specifically, I get a huge chunk of info which ends like this:

0:12:15.021 [I] blockdev.c:169: Add callouts completed udi=/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_SFUJITSU_MAP3735NP_UPG3P2C0075L

00:12:15.022 [D] device_store.c:516: adding 0x855dca0 to (linux.sysfs_path,/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:02:00.0/0000:03:08.0/host6/target6:0:1/6:0:1:0/block/sdb)

00:12:15.022 [I] hald.c:108: Added device to GDL; udi=/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/storage_serial_SFUJITSU_MAP3735NP_UPG3P2C0075L

00:12:15.022 [I] hotplug.c:435: checking event /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:02:00.0/0000:03:08.0/host6/target6:0:1/6:0:1:0/block/sdb/sdb1

00:12:15.022 [I] osspec.c:1016: hal_util_find_known_parent: '/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:02:00.0/0000:03:08.0/host6/target6:0:1/6:0:1:0/block/sdb/sdb1'->'/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:02:00.0/0000:03:08.0/host6/target6:0:1/6:0:1:0/block/sdb'

00:12:15.022 [I] blockdev.c:903: block_add: sysfs_path=/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.0/0000:02:00.0/0000:03:08.0/host6/target6:0:1/6:0:1:0/block/sdb/sdb1 dev=/dev/sdb1 is_part=1, parent=0x0855dca0

00:12:15.023 [D] hotplug.c:453: events queued = 0, events in progress = 6

00:12:15.023 [I] hald_runner.c:110: runner_server_message_handler: destination=(null) obj_path=/org/freedesktop/HalRunner interface=org.freedesktop.HalRunner method=StartedProcessExited

00:12:15.023 [I] hald_runner.c:125: Previously started process with pid 6881 exited

00:12:15.023 [I] hald.c:84: in addon_terminated for udi=/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer

00:12:15.023 [D] hald_dbus.c:3338: udi=/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer

00:12:15.023 [I] hald_dbus.c:3364: AddonIsReady on udi '/org/freedesktop/Hal/devices/computer'

*** [DIE] hald_runner.c:runner_died():202 : Runner died

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## sk8harddiefast

emerge world???sometimes this fix some of my problems!!!!!!i had the same problem so i emerge world and after that my mouse an my keyboard worked!!!!!!!maybe that i am telling is wrong but you have nothing to lose to try it   :Very Happy: 

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## spankmeister7

I've done all that. My system seems to be completely up to date.

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## sk8harddiefast

if you search on gentoo forums you will find a lot of answers.i have seen a lot of people having this problem!!!!!!also have you downloaded x11-drivers/xf86-input-mouse & x11-drivers/xf86-input-keyboard???

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## spankmeister7

Yes I have!!! I've looked for days in the forums!!! I've tried everyone else's ideas but nothing works!!! Have you tried offering any helpful ideas??? Maybe you can spend some time trying to figure out your computer's punctuation problem!!!!

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## slackline

 *spankmeister7 wrote:*   

> Yes I have!!! I've looked for days in the forums!!! I've tried everyone else's ideas but nothing works!!! Have you tried offering any helpful ideas??? Maybe you can spend some time trying to figure out your computer's punctuation problem!!!!

 

I appreciate it must be frustrating, but there's no need to be rude.  You hadn't indicated that you'd 'emerge -e world' so in the absence of information from you it was quite a reasonable suggestion.  Further you don't indicate all of the things you have tried from various other threads.

Here's something you could try to help find out whats going wrong.

```

USE="debug" emerge -1 sys-apps/hal

/etc/init.d/hald  -d -v restart

```

This compiles hal with debugging and then restarts it with debugging enabled and verbose.

Now check your logs/dmesg and see if there is any useful information there.

slack

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