[arch-general] Skype locks up my system, not even sysrq keys work

[Mauro Santos]

On 23-07-2012 22:27, SanskritFritz wrote:
> When I do a videochat in skype, the whole system freezes after a
> while. This while can be a couple to 10+ minutes. The system locks up
> usually when I start or close some other apps in the background. When
> it happens the screen doesnt change anymore, and the sound stutters
> the last half second over and over again.
> Nothing helps, not even the magic sysrq keys (REISUB), which otherwise
> do work (tested it).
> I suspect this could be a result of a new videocard in the system (the
> problem started around that time, when I swapped the old GeForce 7300
> GS to a new 8600 GT), but everything else works flawlessly, 3D games,
> movies, compiz, everything, except skype. Is it possible that a
> hardware problem causes a problem of this magnitude only with skype?
> I couldn't find anything in the logfiles after reboot. There is no
> overheating of the nvidia card or cpu, I constantly check it with
> conky.
> Later I'm going to switch back to the old videocard, and test, to see
> if it is hardware related.
> Please help me to find the problem if software related.
> Cheers
> SanskritFritz
> 

Try some programs that deal only with the webcam, you could try vlc or
guvcview to stream only video from the webcam and check if it hangs.

There are reports that the uvcvideo module needs to be loaded with
nodrop=1 in order to get things to work smoothly, do search in the
forums, I believe I saw something about this there.

-- 
Mauro Santos