Intrepid Upgrade+Live CD: Radeon RV280 9200 Blank Screen

[Robbie G]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg

Hi,

I have upgraded to intrepid and experienced a blank screen at X startup. All was fine under hardy. In retrospect I should have tried the live CD first - the same thing happens with the intrepid live CD i.e. screen goes blank at X startup. Gutsy & Hardy live CD boots to gnome with no trouble.

My card is: ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)

Notes:
1) I have added driver "ati" and driver "vesa" into xorg.conf as per suggestions on other seemingly related postings but this makes no difference.

2) My monitor has only DVI and I get a blank screen every time i.e. this is a different bug from those who have reported an intermittant Radeon issue (#274290).

3) If I use safe graphics mode I still get a blank screen.

I attach 2 failure logs for normal mode and one for safe graphics mode. I think the only difference in each failure for normal mode is 2 or 3 lines of memory addresses.

I've now reinstalled Gutsy (for old time's sake ;-) ) but can boot live CD for any testing required.

[Dieter Moerschel (dmoer)]

I can confirm that the life CD boots into a black screen on this GPU.
In my case though the safe mode vesa driver succeeds booting into a 1280x1024 resolution. (but using vesa is a workaround already and even an unstable at that, so that difference should not matter much)

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Please try jaunty alpha2 livecd once it's available.

[Robbie G (robbie-cartwood-nee-grimwood)]

Sorry guys, I've been away on holiday :-)

Still a blank screen on Jaunty alpha 2 I'm afraid. The relevent Xorg log is attacched.

It was also blank in safe graphics mode.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

radeontool in Jaunty alpha-3* can be used to assist in debugging this issue. After installing it, you run it like this:
    radeontool regmatch '*' > regdump_good.txt
    radeontool regmatch '*' > regdump_broke.txt

Run it two times. Once when you have a working screen (for any driver), and once in the broken case (either from the tty console or logged into the sick box remotely). Attach both of those to this bug report, and we can then forward this issue upstream. Thanks ahead of time!

[* Note: radeontool is available in earlier versions of Ubuntu but is too old; if you need to run it on an older version of Ubuntu, you can obtain and build it from the upstream git tree at http://cgit.freedesktop.org/~airlied/radeontool/. Or maybe just try copying the executable from the jaunty system to the older one; I've not tried it but it might work.]

[Davide Totaro (dvd100)]

Same problem on a Hardy updated to intrepid. The problem isn't present installing the 2.6.24 kernel and booting from it. IMHO the bug is in the driver of the kernel..

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Okay, thanks; re-doing package to the kernel.

[Davide Totaro (dvd100)]

is the radeontool report useful if I do it now?

[TheHobbit (the-hobbit)]

I can confirm that reverting to 2.6.24-24 from ubuntu archives solves the problem. I'll attach to this report the output of radeontool for the "good" case (i.e. running 2.6.24). At the moment I need using the computer to which the video card is attached, but later I'll try to run the same command in the bad case.

By the way, running radeontool seems to kill the output: I'm presented with a black screen and the only way to have output back is to reboot. Is this normal?

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

Unfortunately it seems this bug is still an issue. Can you confirm this issue exists with the most recent Jaunty Jackalope 9.04 release - http://www.ubuntu.com/news/ubuntu-9.04-desktop . Please let us know your results. Thanks.

[Robbie G (robbie-cartwood-nee-grimwood)]

Bingo Bongo !

Jaunty "production" Live CD from 12th May 2009 comes up fine with no monitor/display issues.

Sorry I'm not is a position to test the install/upgrade just yet as I'm rather busy with other jobs around the house.

[Davide Totaro (dvd100)]

Tested with a 9.04 live cd and the issue still exist! Corrupted screen when xorg boots..

[Robbie G (robbie-cartwood-nee-grimwood)]

Davide, it looks like we have some difference in our environments or symptoms. My card's reported as:

ATI Technologies Inc RV280 [Radeon 9200 PRO] (rev 01)

and my symptom was a completely blank screen. This in is now fixed in the latest 9.04 live CD.

You report a "corrupted", not a blank screen - can you describe this in more detail.

[Davide Totaro (dvd100)]

Ok, I've the same graphic card. I attached what I get instead of gdm login.
The problem is present in 8.10 and 9.04, it disappear installing and booting from a 2.6.24 kernel.

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

Unfortunately it seems this bug is still an issue. Can you confirm this issue exists with the most recent Karmic Koala 9.10 release - http://releases.ubuntu.com/karmic. If the issue remains in Karmic, please test the latest upstream kernel build - https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds .

Let us know your results. Thanks.

[Robbie G (robbie-cartwood-nee-grimwood)]

Hi Chaps,

I've booted the Live CD to a gnome GUI with no problems. Additionally, a fresh install to disk has produced a fully working Karmic implementation with no intervention or tweaks :-)

Davide, I wonder if we have different revisions of this chipset?

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

@Robbie G, thanks for the feedback.

@Davide, can you re-test with Karmic Koala 9.10 - if we don't get any further feedback I shall close the bug. Thanks!

[Davide Totaro (dvd100)]

Ok, I tested it with a 9.10 livecd. It booted fine without any problems, thank you!

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

@Davide, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. This looks like 9.10 has fixed things for you. Is it OK for the bug to be closed marking it as "Fixed" for you?

[Davide Totaro (dvd100)]

Yes, the issue was fixed ;)

[Colin Ian King (colin-king)]

Marking as Fixed Released

[prairie zephyr (prairie-zephyr)]

I have been trying to upgrade a ppc mac with this radeon ati 128 issue. To start with: in 2008 colin-king asked original bug reporter robbie-cartwood-nee-grimwood to describe the Live cd boot graphic 'weirdness' with no appropriate response. Its hard to describe but psychedelic comes close. If I boot from 13.04 Live cd the gui screen is like a lite-brite 70s-era toy at best (if not black) with lucky live-powerpc nosplash etc guesses; if I try various hacks in terminals and F7 back to gui the ghost of a terminal window can actually be erased with the mouse (pointer/select) like using a wide Photoshop eraser brush until the screen is uniformly psychedelic lite-brite pixellated and useless. To begin with ppc support for ubuntustudio is so thin I had to net-install from a mini 12.04 iso and have some lingering network issue I've taken a dozen stabs at. Now the wireless is stable but I still can't get it to connect with a wire (ethernet). I can install all kinds of programs but not cannot upgrade although 12.10 is offered in update manager. I've tried every combinatory multiple choice of server/sources but its a waste of time and authorization effort. If I could only boot from the 13.04 I'd have access to fixes for my system I'm sure but I can't even get up to 12.10. I tried a /cdrominstall command but either I guessed wrong or it couldn't access the kernel designed to be a booted Live installer. I have an Intel mac with way less Linux issues but this ppc (Mac Mini 3,1) is the one I want to dedicate to ubuntustudio. I'm trying to keep ppc distribution alive by converting this bug to a current question. Thanks to anyone who wants to address this issue. I can run tests if that helps.

Turning a bug into a question didn't work for me:

"A bug must meet a few conditions to be convertible to a question. Its status must be either New, >>> Incomplete <<<, Confirmed, or >>> Wont Fix <<<<." !!! still not fixed circa 12.10/13.04