xserver cannot restart after logout when using nVidia-177 driver

[plutino]

Xubuntu 8.10,
xorg 7.4

What did I expect to happen?
After logout Xfce, I expect to see the GDM login window

What happened instead?
xserver tries to start three times before falling to safe graphics mode. There is an option menu saying that I can look at the failure logs and xorg conf file, but none of the options works. This happenes every time when I try to logout, and also when I stop gdm and restart it. This problem does not occur after a fresh boot and when xserver starts for the first time.

Computer hardware: Thinkpad T61 with nVidia graphic card.

[plutino (plutino)]

I initially though it was a bug, but now it looks more like a gdm configuration problem. I tried to logout XFCE right after a fresh install of xubuntu 8.10 today, the same problem occurs. But after some random change of the /etc/gdm.conf-custom file, it seems back to normal now. I don't know what change(s) trigger it.

[plutino (plutino)]

Now I confirm that it's something wrong with Intrepid. The problem occurs when I use the proprietary nVidia driver (version 177). As soon as I switch to the default nv driver, I can logout normally.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automated message]

Hi plutino,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn` too.

[plutino (plutino)]

Attached is the output of `lspci -vvnn'.

I tried the nvidia-173 driver just now, and it seems to work fine. I can logout and login again just as normal. But as I switch back to the nvidia-177 driver, the problem is still there.

My T61 has a nVidia Quadro NVS 140M card.

[plutino (plutino)]

I've done some more test for the problem, and here is some updates. Hopefully this will help draw more attention to this bug.

I tried to boot to a non-graphical terminal window and start the x server manually, and here is what I found:

For the first run of "startx" right after login, everything is normal, just as the first time login with gdm.
For subsequent runs of "startx", there is a long pause, about the same length as in the gdm case mentioned in the original bug report. But after the pause, xfce can start normally.
There isn't any difference between the /var/log/Xorg.0.log files (attached) in the two cases. Is there anyway to know what the system is doing during the long pause?

[plutino (plutino)]

update about nvidia-180 driver. Problem still exists with the nvidia-180 driver, but still, 173 driver is good.