[nvidia] Screen dies/black after changing display orientation or enabling fractional scaling

[Jonathan Watt]

I upgraded to 20.04 over a month ago and it's been working fine. I have one monitor (external). I tried turning on fractional scaling in the display settings and the screen immediately turned black. I waited, expecting the "confirm changes" prompt to timeout and restore the display. It never did.

Next I hard rebooted, but as soon as I'd entered my password to login, the screen went black again. Tried this a few more times. I then booted to a root console and `apt update/upgrade` to get all updates. Rebooting, I had the same issue on logging in. I then used Ctrl+Alt+F1 to get a virtual console, then back to F2, and a few other things. At some point I was able to log back in.

Foolishly I assumed the issue was just with fractional scaling, and back in Display settings I for some reason decided to experiment further and flipped the display orientation to portrate. Immediately I got a black screen and ended back in the same reboot loop, always getting a black screen as soon as I tried to log back in. Searching online I couldn't seem to find a way to revert the display orientation. From another virtual console I was unable to run xrandr or start a wayland session to get to the settings panel. To do that I was trying to run:

  dbus-run-session -- gnome-shell --display-server --wayland

But that's just something I found on the Web, I have no idea what I'm doing there. It just gave the error:

(gnome-shell:xxxx) mutter-warning: **: <ip-address-like-numbers> Failed to open gpu 'dev/dri/card0 Failed to activate universal planes: Operation not permitted
(gnome-shell:xxxx) mutter-warning: **: <ip-address-like-numbers> Failed to create backend: No GPUs found

Eventually I found a suggestion on the Web to unplug the cable to the display, and after experimenting with that a bit and switching between virtual consoles, at some point it was logged in with a working display ... well, sort of. The colors and icons are weird like it's lost theming or something. Going into the Display settings it seems that the orientation has also been reset to landscape.

I'm filing this bug before restarting the machine so I can report the system scan it has taken. At this point I've no idea whether I'll be able to log back in again after a reboot. I'll try that now.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: xorg 1:7.7+19ubuntu14
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-40.44-generic 5.4.44
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-40-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
.proc.driver.nvidia.gpus.0000.21.00.0: Error: [Errno 21] Is a directory: '/proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/0000:21:00.0'
.proc.driver.nvidia.registry: Binary: ""
.proc.driver.nvidia.suspend: suspend hibernate resume
.proc.driver.nvidia.suspend_depth: default modeset uvm
.proc.driver.nvidia.version:
 NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 435.21 Sun Aug 25 08:17:57 CDT 2019
 GCC version: gcc version 9.3.0 (Ubuntu 9.3.0-10ubuntu2)
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.4
Architecture: amd64
BootLog: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/boot.log'
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CompositorRunning: None
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Sat Jul 18 17:21:56 2020
DistUpgraded: 2020-04-29 16:04:33,258 DEBUG Running PostInstallScript: './xorg_fix_proprietary.py'
DistroCodename: focal
DistroVariant: ubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 nvidia, 435.21, 5.4.0-37-generic, x86_64: installed
 nvidia, 435.21, 5.4.0-40-generic, x86_64: installed
ExtraDebuggingInterest: Yes
GraphicsCard:
 NVIDIA Corporation GP107GL [Quadro P400] [10de:1cb3] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Dell GP107GL [Quadro P400] [1028:11be]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-11-03 (257 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
MachineType: HP HP Z4 G4 Workstation
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-40-generic root=UUID=9586ebe6-be5f-4a32-b960-e129e9d98eb9 ro recovery nomodeset
SourcePackage: xorg
Symptom: display
Title: Xorg crash
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-04-29 (80 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 03/21/2019
dmi.bios.vendor: HP
dmi.bios.version: P62 v01.75
dmi.board.name: 81C5
dmi.board.vendor: HP
dmi.board.version: MVB
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: HP
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHP:bvrP62v01.75:bd03/21/2019:svnHP:pnHPZ4G4Workstation:pvr:rvnHP:rn81C5:rvrMVB:cvnHP:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.family: 103C_53335X HP Workstation
dmi.product.name: HP Z4 G4 Workstation
dmi.product.sku: 5FN34US#ABA
dmi.sys.vendor: HP
version.compiz: compiz N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.101-2
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 20.0.8-0ubuntu1~20.04.1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx N/A
version.nvidia-graphics-drivers: nvidia-graphics-drivers-* N/A
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.20.8-2ubuntu2.2
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:19.1.0-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20200226-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.16-1

[Jonathan Watt (jwatt)]

The issue seems gone after a reboot. Theming and colors are back to normal.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This sounds like bug 1873403 and you probably just needed to update the system:

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt full-upgrade
  Reboot.

Does comment #2 mean the issue is gone for good?

[Jonathan Watt (jwatt)]

> Does comment #2 mean the issue is gone for good?

No, I just mean that it didn't reoccur after rebooting. Turning on fractional scaling broke things again.

The `full-upgrade` thing does appear to have fixed things for good though.

Thank you for your help!

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

That's odd because the fix for bug 1873403 isn't formally released to updates yet. But I'm glad your issue is gone.