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I use MobaXterm to connect (via ssh) to an Ubuntu server as a Virtualbox guest and, to edit files I use Vim. So far so good but randomly I have a kind of freeze screen. Cursor is still blinking but it's impossible to do anything with it and, if I resize MobaXterm the session tab goes black. It's not due to a session loss as I set the guest server as host only adapter which rules out any session losses.

So is it because of MobaXterm, Virtualbox or Vim ? Can someone help me on this ?

Thanks

Thomas Dickey
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Duddy67
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    Try press ctrl-Q when a session freezes. – Zaboj Campula Jul 17 '15 at 15:16
  • I tried but it doesn't work. Any idea ? – Duddy67 Jul 18 '15 at 11:34
  • So you have to do some investigation what is wrong. Create a new session and check the status of the previous session. Run `who`, `ps -ef|grep vim`, `netstat -an|grep 22`. Then you can deduce what application caused the freeze. Optionally you can kill the vim and check if the old session wakes up. – Zaboj Campula Jul 19 '15 at 13:16
  • Thanks. I'll try this as soon as the problem comes again. – Duddy67 Jul 23 '15 at 05:53
  • I've just ran through this problem again. Here is is what I've found: `web@dagobah:~$ who web pts/0 2015-11-18 08:18 (192.168.56.1) web pts/1 2015-11-18 09:35 (192.168.56.1) web@dagobah:~$ ps -ef|grep vim web 1398 1382 0 08:18 pts/0 00:00:19 vim web 1491 1468 0 09:35 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --color=auto vim` In your opinion what is the application which caused the freeze ? – Duddy67 Nov 18 '15 at 08:53
  • Result of netstat -an|grep 22 : `web@dagobah:~$ netstat -an|grep 22 tcp 0 0 0.0.0.0:22 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN tcp 0 0 192.168.56.103:22 192.168.56.1:50290 ESTABLISHED tcp 0 28 192.168.56.103:22 192.168.56.1:50507 ESTABLISHED tcp 0 0 192.168.56.103:22 192.168.56.1:50292 ESTABLISHED tcp 0 0 192.168.56.103:22 192.168.56.1:50508 ESTABLISHED tcp6 0 0 :::22 :::* LISTEN unix 2 [ ] DGRAM 11122` – Duddy67 Nov 18 '15 at 09:01
  • Try to kill vim from the new session. Does the kill unfreeze the session? – Zaboj Campula Nov 18 '15 at 13:10
  • Argh, I can't tell as I've closed all the sessions hours ago. However, could you guess who is at fault from the command result I've posted ? – Duddy67 Nov 18 '15 at 14:13
  • Hi, It happened again but this time I ran a new session and I killed Vim `pkill vim` and this is what I get from the freezing session: `Vim: Caught deadly signal TERM Vim: preserving files... Vim: Finished. Vim: Double signal, exiting segmentation fault web@dagobah:~/html/jooshop$` But I can no longer do anything with the session, the cursor is just blinking that's it. Do you think the problem comes from Vim ? – Duddy67 Nov 27 '15 at 14:39
  • I was recently introduced to Mobaxterm and thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Until the freezing started. It's definitely Mobaxterm in my case, I can use another client to connect to the same machine and it's fine, and if I kill and restart the session in Mobaxterm it's fine, for a while. It's a frequent enough problem that I'm going to have to abandon it. Shame because it has some good features. – whoasked Nov 15 '18 at 15:40
  • I am having the same freezing with MobaXterm, which I didn't see with PuTTY or KiTTY. Wondering if there is any solution. – Qiang Xu May 29 '19 at 15:19

1 Answers1

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I guess it is ssh. Try to switch the mobaxterm connection type from ssh to mosh. ssh times out, so you get this problem on a regular basis. You can set the interval in ssh, but it does not help much. mosh makes all this obsolete. It takes much longer to start a session with mosh, but it is persistent even when your machine hibernates.

Still, it may happen that mobaxterm itself freezes (everything fades, the cursor shows wait state and freezes, too), mobaxterm does not respond anymore. In months of daily work this happened a few times to me with AWS ubuntu from Windows 10. Kill & restart mobaxterm helps in this case, but you have to kill the leftovers and restore all sessions.

kklepper
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    It's been 6 month now since I've used a real Xterm terminal (through an Ubuntu server) and I have not experienced any freezing terminal so far. So I guess the problem comes from MobaXterm. It's a shame as it's a great terminal for Windows (far better than Putty) but I can't afford random freezing terminal, so now I stick to Xterm. – Duddy67 Jun 30 '16 at 17:44
  • I have same problems after upgrade to Win10. MobaTerm freezes and does not respond. Surprisingly if I open 2nd Tab with ssh, the 1st tab unfreezes. I looks like there is something wrong with the way how Win10 handles focus. – ibre5041 Mar 26 '20 at 12:09