[Dell XPS 15 9575] Black screen on boot in kernels 5.14 and 5.15 (but 5.13.19 works)

[Joe Barnett]

After initial jammy upgrade things were working fine, but after a recent update the machine boots to a blank screen. There are occasional purplish flickers that seem to correspond with keypresses, but even blindly typing the encrypted disk password doesn't appear to advance the boot process to gdm.

Plugging in an external monitor does fix the issue and allow boot to proceed, but obviously doesn't help if not near an external monitor.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: plymouth 0.9.5+git20211018-1ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.15.0-23.23-generic 5.15.27
Uname: Linux 5.15.0-23-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu79
Architecture: amd64
BootLog: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/boot.log'
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Tue Mar 22 09:22:26 2022
DefaultPlymouth: /usr/share/plymouth/themes/bgrt/bgrt.plymouth
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-08-17 (948 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.04 "Disco Dingo" - Alpha amd64 (20190305.1)
MachineType: Dell Inc. XPS 15 9575
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.15.0-23-generic root=UUID=83cade14-7628-437d-8517-36ad82f00d20 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
ProcFB: 0 i915drmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-5.15.0-23-generic root=UUID=83cade14-7628-437d-8517-36ad82f00d20 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: plymouth
TextPlymouth: /usr/share/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-gnome-text/ubuntu-gnome-text.plymouth
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to jammy on 2022-03-18 (3 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 03/25/2021
dmi.bios.release: 1.15
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 1.15.1
dmi.board.name: 0N338G
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 31
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr1.15.1:bd03/25/2021:br1.15:svnDellInc.:pnXPS159575:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0N338G:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct31:cvr:sku080D:
dmi.product.family: XPS
dmi.product.name: XPS 15 9575
dmi.product.sku: 080D
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[lotuspsychje (lotuspsychje)]

Could you try a test and boot with;

adding the kernel parameter intel_idle.max_cstate=4

[Joe Barnett (thejoe)]

kernel parameter intel_idle.max_cstate=4 does not help.

Things do work properly if I boot with the external display plugged in to begin with.

It does appear that blindly typing the encrypted disk password still "works" and gdm does end up starting behind the black screen, but the display does not fix itself until plugging in an external monitor.

booting with kernel 5.13.0-35 does not exhibit the bug (but uses the previously configured ubuntu-gnome plymouth graphics instead of the new spinner ones).

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Please try adding kernel parameter: i915.enable_psr=0

Although if kernel 5.13 works then I suspect it may be a relation of bug 1965882. As I dig deeper into that one it seems like a general kernel bug that's not specific to nouveau at all.

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Joe Barnett (thejoe)]

i915.enable_psr=0 did not fix the black screen issue, but did appear to remove the flickering purple streaks, fwiw.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Heh, two separate bugs on screen at the same time...

Next please try these kernels:

https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.14.20/
https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.14.21/

And please keep i915.enable_psr=0

[Joe Barnett (thejoe)]

both of those exhibit the bug.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

OK then next please try https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.14/

If it works then next try: https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.14.10/

If it fails then try: https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v5.13/

We need to find the version where the black screen started.

[Joe Barnett (thejoe)]

v5.14: black screen
v5.13: black screen with i915.enable_psr=0, works without

went back and tried the initial 5.13.0-35 as well, and it also does the black screen with i915.enable_psr=0

will try to find the first mainline 5.13 that doesn't work today (or if they all work).

[Joe Barnett (thejoe)]

based on previous comment no longer testing with i915.enable_psr=0, but here's what i've narrowed it down to:

v5.13.19: works
v5.14.0rc2: black screen

looks like the v5.14.0rc1 build failed so can't test that?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Ideally the flicker (PSR) should get a separate bug to the black screen regression, but it's difficult to separate them when both are messing up the same screen at the same time. So let's focus on just the black screen here.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

This feels like something the OEM team would have already fixed in an oem kernel?