unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at 0000000000000230

[Bruce Pieterse]

About a week and a half ago I would lose rendering of the desktop randomly while under a Wayland session. I would have the last displayed images on my monitor, mouse movement worked, video and audio still workedd, but visual feedback was lost when clicking on items in the browser or last app opened. Spacebar would work fine to pause a video, or media keys to stop the music player.

I've been trying to hunt down the reason until I realised that I might be running under Wayland instead of Xorg. I changed the configuration option in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf to disable Wayland and enabled debugging and restarted.

I was away from my desk earlier when I logged, in a few minutes later the screen went black, as if it went into power saving mode. Unlike the Wayland sessions I wasn't able to get to any TTY's.

Upon restarting I noticed the following, which wasn't present in the previous journal under Wayland (see attached - to large for description field).

At this point, this seems to be occurring randomly. I'm happy to help with debugging if need be.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: xserver-xorg-video-radeon 1:18.0.1-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-29.31-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.2
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CompositorRunning: None
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Tue Jul 24 21:33:29 2018
DistUpgraded: 2018-01-24 20:50:51,381 ERROR got error from PostInstallScript ./xorg_fix_proprietary.py (g-exec-error-quark: Failed to execute child process “./xorg_fix_proprietary.py” (No such file or directory) (8))
DistroCodename: bionic
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 virtualbox, 5.2.10, 4.15.0-24-generic, x86_64: installed
 virtualbox, 5.2.10, 4.15.0-29-generic, x86_64: installed
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes
GraphicsCard:
 Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller [1462:7850]
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Tahiti PRO [Radeon HD 7950/8950 OEM / R9 280] [1002:679a] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Tahiti PRO [Radeon HD 7950/8950 OEM / R9 280] [1458:254c]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-10-25 (636 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-GNOME 16.04.1 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160720)
MachineType: MSI MS-7850
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.15.0-29-generic root=UUID=de66cbe2-16ea-4c60-9081-ed9a0306f7af ro quiet splash vt.handoff=1
SourcePackage: xserver-xorg-video-ati
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-01-24 (181 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 02/16/2016
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: V5.9
dmi.board.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: H97 PC Mate(MS-7850)
dmi.board.vendor: MSI
dmi.board.version: 1.0
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: MSI
dmi.chassis.version: 1.0
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvrV5.9:bd02/16/2016:svnMSI:pnMS-7850:pvr1.0:rvnMSI:rnH97PCMate(MS-7850):rvr1.0:cvnMSI:ct3:cvr1.0:
dmi.product.family: To be filled by O.E.M.
dmi.product.name: MS-7850
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: MSI
version.compiz: compiz N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.91-2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 18.0.5-0ubuntu0~18.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 18.0.5-0ubuntu0~18.04.1
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.19.6-1ubuntu4
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev 1:2.10.5-1ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:18.0.1-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20171229-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.15-2