Blank screen before login with AGP video cards ubuntu 8.10 alpha 6

[philijkl]

I tried ubuntu 8.04 and previous version and the boot cd always worked perfectly. But with ubuntu 8.10 alpha 6 (Intel x86) when I try to boot from the cd, it display the loading process but after that, a black screen appear and nothing is happening .... I tried ubuntu 8.10 alpha 6 (AMD64) and it works well, no black screen ..

my specs ...
processor :Athlon 64
video : sapphire 3850 agp 512 mb
lcd screen : syncmaster 2253bw

[Umang Varma (umang)]

This happen to me with 7.10. I hadn't downloaded the .iso properly. To check if you have done so, please check the md5 of the .iso file and/or chose the "Check disk for errors" (or similar) menu item that appears as soon as you boot with the CD.

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

Could you do that and post the results here? Thanks.

[Rune K. Svendsen (runeks)]

Could you try doing the following? I want to see if the bug I've reported (Bug #272877) is a duplicate of this bug. Basically, when the black screen appears you try to get to a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1, stopping GDM, then changing the driver to "vesa" in xorg.conf, and starting GDM again. Here's a more detailed description:

You can change the driver to "vesa" by getting to a console by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1 (do this when the black screen appears). Then shut down GDM by typing:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop

Then you edit the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf with for example 'nano' by typing:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

There should be a "Device"-section that looks like this (there might be more lines of text between "Section" and "EndSection", but mine just looks like this when using the Intrepid Alpha 6 Live CD):

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

In this section add a line with the text "Driver "vesa"". Doing so with the example above would make it look like this:

Section "Device"
 Identifier "Configured Video Device"
 Driver "vesa"
EndSection

Save the file and exit nano.

Now start GDM again by typing:

sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

[philijkl (philijkl)]

OK I stopped GDM, I changed the driver to "vesa" in xorg.conf, and started GDM again .. and its working, no more blackscreen ... so its a duplicate of (Bug #272877) .. thanks

[Rune K. Svendsen (runeks)]

I experience the same bug. The Hardy Live CD works fine but the Intrepid Alpha 6 Live CD displays the symptoms mentioned above.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

I experienced something like this, which was resolved by disabling compiz (I just did chmod a-x /usr/bin/compiz and rebooted). Can you try to see if disabling compiz is enough to make it work with the -ati driver?

Also, anyone who is seeing this issue and has not already done so, please attach your /var/log/Xorg.0.log when running with -ati enabled, and the output of `lspci -vvnn`. Also look in your /var/log/gdm.log to see if there are any error messages there, and if so please also list them.

[Patrik Schönfeldt (bauer87)]

I experience the same with Ubuntu Intrepid KDE Beta. When I stop kdm and do "startx" manually there are many messages as those that can be found in the kdm.log file I attached (Blank CRTC 0 success, Disable CRTC 0 success). When I swith to TTYn and back several times I get corruptions - text is almost unreadyble (sorry for typing mistakes, I can's identify most letters). I will upload a photo when I have clear sight again.
PS: Corruptions occur when using VESA, with "radeon" display remains black. But maybe it has to do with this bug.

[Steven Wilson (excyber)]

I'm seeing this too; monitor is an Acer AL1916W connected via DVI.

[Steven Wilson (excyber)]

I tried removing execute permissions to compiz and got no noticeable change in behavior.

Errors from gdm log:

(EE) RADEON(0): Acceleration initialization failed
(EE) PreInit returned NULL for "HID 6666:0667"
(EE) config/hal: NewInputDeviceRequest failed

[Steven Wilson (excyber)]

Sorry, looks like I dropped a 'v' on the lspci.

[Steven Wilson (excyber)]

After further poking around, I strongly suspect that what I'm seeing is a problem with the interpretation of the EDID info in my monitor (Acer AL1916W, which many others - including users of NVidia's binary driver - have reported trouble with), so there's a good chance that my data is unrelated to the original reporter's bug. Sorry if I wasted anyone's time.

[Rune K. Svendsen (runeks)]

I still experience this bug with the now officially released Intrepid, and I can't update to this version because of this.

Getting to a console when the screen turns blank, stopping gdm, executing the command "sudo chmod a-x /usr/bin/compiz" and restarting gdm makes no difference.

I will attach the relevant logs here. I have no file called "/var/log/gdm.log" but I have one called /var/log/log/gdm:0.log which I will attach.

[Rune K. Svendsen (runeks)]

I get the same error as Steven Wilson:

(EE) RADEON(0): Acceleration initialization failed

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

For those who see issues like these, and that have an AGP bus like phil does, it is possibly you just need an AGPMode quirk. Please see this page:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Quirks/#ATI AGP Mode Quirk

If the workaround listed there solves the issue, please follow the directions and post the PCI details into a NEW bug mentioning "AGPMode" in the subject line.

phil, please test the above and let us know whether there is an AGPMode that solves the issue for you.

[Steve Beattie (sbeattie)]

This bug was reported in the Intrepid development cycle; removing regression-potential and marking as regression-release.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Rune, note that Steve's issue turned out to be a problem unrelated to this bug. So you probably should report your issue separately.

We will be focusing only on philijkl's originally reported problem.

@phil, could you test the Jaunty alpha-2 i386 LiveCD when it is out tomorrow (12/17/2009), and see if the problem still exists there?

[philijkl (philijkl)]

I dont have my sapphire 3850 agp video card anymore. So I can't test. sorry.

[Rune K. Svendsen (runeks)]

Ok, Bryce. I've removed the duplicate status of the bugs #272623 and #272877 I've reported (one for Ubuntu and one for xserver-xorg-video-ati when I found out it was this package that contained the bug).

Bug #272623 should probably be deleted though, but I can't figure out how to do that.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Since the hardware is no longer available for doing troubleshooting with, we'll have to close the bug for now. However please feel free to reopen if you or anyone else has the same HW and can reproduce this issue using the latest development version of Ubuntu and is willing to do some troubleshooting with it.

[Patrik Schönfeldt (bauer87)]

I have tested Jaunty Alpha 2 with my x850xt (AGP) and my 9500pro, everything works fine. I think this bug can be considered as resolved.