[i965] black screen on compiz startup on dell 1420 w/ intel GM965

[J. Bruce Fields]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-intel

gdm works ok, but as soon as compiz starts after login I get a screen that is completely black except for the mouse pointer. I can still move the mouse pointer, and I can switch to different virtual terminal to kill the session. Logging in with the failsafe-terminal session and starting compiz by hand gives the same result.

This is a new (as of a few days ago) installation of intrepid. It worked fine until today. I looked through /var/log/dpkg.log and tried downgrading everything that had been upgraded since install and that looked vaguely compiz or x-related (compiz, compiz-core, compiz-gnome, compiz-plugins, compiz-wrapper, libdecoration0, libx11-6, libx11-data, libx11-xcb1, xserver-xorg-input-evdev, and the kernel) but results are the same.

[J. Bruce Fields (bfields-fieldses)]

(My workaround for now, by the way, has been to switch to xfwm4).

[J. Bruce Fields (bfields-fieldses)]

This xsession-errors also has a backtrace in it (possibly unrelated)

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Thank you for reporting this bug and attaching almost all the necessary information. If you could please also include the output of `lspci -vvnn` that would complete the standard information needed for this bug report.

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Do you have the possibility to also test the latest Jaunty alpha CD-image? (http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/9.04/alpha-3/)

If you can, it would be great if you could report back and include /var/log/Xorg.0.log and the output of `lspci -vvnn` from there too.

[J. Bruce Fields (bfields-fieldses)]

I tried Jaunty, and couldn't reproduce the problem. I also tried an intrepid live cd, and it was fine too.

I suppose I'll try reinstalling intrepid and upgrading again and see if that reproduces the problem.

Additional lspci's and X logs attached.

[J. Bruce Fields (bfields-fieldses)]

I was happy to see new versions of xserver-xorg-video-{i810,intel} today (now 2:2.4.1-1ubuntu10.1), but alas, no change in symptoms. Any more troubleshooting hints?

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

I'm a little bit at loss, since you cannot reproduce this with a LiveCD. The only things I can think of are:
- Create a new user and log in as this user. If this works it indicates that there are some of your user settings (e.g. in ~/.config) that triggers the problem.
- With the intrepid LiveCD, try upgrading some individual packages that may be related. You can't do a `apt-get upgrade` because it will not be memory enough to store all the new installed packages. Upgrading individual packages can be done with `apt-get install pkg-name` if I remember correctrly.
- Reinstall Intrepid from scratch. First test before you upgrade any packages. If it works, but stops working after an upgrade some of the upgrades probably did it.

I think that realistically, this can only be fixed in intrepid if you are able to pinpoint the exact package upgrade that triggers this problem. Then those changes may be reverted (subject to pro/con analysis). For Jaunty, it seems to not be a problem any more, which is a good thing (although it can be a bit dissatisfying for a bug reporter) :-)

Thank you for including lots of information promtlly for this bug.

[J. Bruce Fields (bfields-fieldses)]

OK, thanks. I had the same curiosity about user settings, so I did try adduser'ing a fresh account and logging in, and got the same (poor) result.

I also did an overnight memtest86, and tried verifying md5sums on installed packages in hopes of catching any random filesystem or memory corruption.

So now I'm going with your last option: I reinstalled from the Intrepid live cd, and I suppose I'll just pin any packages that look X/compiz-related, then upgrade them slowly over the coming weeks and see if I can reproduce the problem with some particular upgrade.

It might be interesting for somebody with more X experience to look at diff's between the various log files; e.g. I notice that there's an "underrun on pipe B" in the bad case, though googling around suggests that's a fairly generic error.

[J. Bruce Fields (bfields-fieldses)]

Ugh. Well, I reinstalled from the same Intrepid live cd that I originally installed from and upgraded in steps (rebooting after each).

At this point I'm completely up-to-date, but don't see the original problem.

So it's something harder to reproduce, or it takes longer to manifest. I'll report if I see it again, but for now perhaps this should be closed as unreproduceable.

[Geir Ove Myhr (gomyhr)]

Yes, I'm closing it for now. Feel free to reopen it (setting the status back to Confirmed) if you can reproduce it later. Thank you for reporting this problem and testing thoroughly -- maybe next time it will lead to a tangible improvement of Ubuntu.