fglrx breaks graphics in 9.04; system won't boot

[Bob Fletcher]

Ubuntu 9.04 upgrade from 8.10. (AMD 64 bit version). Upgrade install went ok. Newest kernel (2.6.28.11?) caused problems with video. No sound, and choppy smeary video. Installed fglrx driver for ATI 4870 (which worked perfectly in 8.10). Still had problems with video and sound, but could use graphics effects. Tried to reboot in lower number kernel. Graphics broken. Can't boot. Tried ALL kernel versions, used all recovery modes, tried to fix XOrg from recovery mode menu. Just got lockup. Went into command line with networking and used:
 apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx to remove fglrx. Can now boot into system, but graphics still not quite right.
Absolutely cannot use fglrx (unlike in 8.10) in any kernel version. It immediately breaks the system. fglrx, Compiz, full 3 D Video and sound work fine in 8.10 with fglrx driver. Now, in 9.04 kernel: 2.6.27.9 can only use Normal graphics setting; video and sound okay;(

[Bob Fletcher (rfletcher8626)]

Fixed:
1. Chose recovery mode and went into command line with networking. type:
 apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx to remove fglrx
this allowed system to boot into older kernel
2. In Synaptic package manager chose Metapackages, and reinstalled linux-image-generic 2.6.28.11.15
3. boot into kernel 2.6.28.11
4. Fixed Sound problem: Audigy 2 soundcard; Analog/Digital Output Jack. The function was reversed in an update.
To check. double click on the speaker icon in top panel and look for a 'switches' tab. If it's there then open and uncheck the 'Analog/Digital Output Jack'. If not there then click on 'preferences', scroll down and enable the Analog/Digital Output Jack switch, then go back and uncheck. Sound works fine now.
5. Went into system - administration - hardware drivers and installed fglrx. This time it worked fine. No problems

May have been caused by kernel being corrupted during upgrade.
If this were Windblows, I would have had to format C: and start all over from zero. Instead, I could fix it with the help of the Ubuntu community. Thanks to all the various forums that lead to this solution.

[beaon (filc03)]

The fix posted above did not resolve this. My system still fails to boot if FGLRX is installed under 9.04. I have to remove the driver in recovery mode in order to boot.

This isn't an isolated thing and is likely not due upgrade corruption. It specifically effects people using fglrx.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7143967#post7143967
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1028284

[Forage (forage)]

I found that the problem is ATI, not Ubuntu. Support for quite a number of cards was dropped as of Catalyst 9.4. Catalyst 9.3, however, does not support X Server 1.6 which is included in Ubuntu 9.04. Ironically support for X Server 1.6 was introduced in Catalyst 9.4. Please, let ATI know what you think of this and ask them to include those cards for just one more round to let them have X Server 1.6 support: http://www.amd.com/us/LinuxCrewSurvey

[Russell (russellp)]

Same issues here. I have an ATI 4850 - for which support has not yet been dropped as it is a new card. Was working perfectly in 8.10. The upgrade to 9.04 resulted in graphical corruption on the screen and a system hang when starting X. Removing the driver allows boot into non-accelerated GUI. Selecting "system - administration - hardware drivers" reinstalls the driver and breaks everything again. Even if this is an ATI problem, the hardware driver application should check which card you have against a database of supported cards and present the user with information such as "Your card is not supported by the ATI drivers" and then not proceed to break the system.

[Bob Fletcher (rfletcher8626)]

More info on Fix that worked for me:
I have ATI 4870 card. I installed fglrx three times using "system - administration - hardware drivers".
Each time it broke my system and I had to use "apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx" to remove it so I could boot up.
The fourth time, I went to Synaptic package manager, chose Metapackages, and reinstalled linux-image-generic 2.6.28.11.15 Then rebooted into 2.6.28.11 and installed driver using "system - administration - hardware drivers". For some crazy reason, this time it worked perfectly. I have been using for a few days now with no problems. The fact that this solution did not work for others made me wonder why. I went to Synaptic Package manager and searched ATI. There are several different drivers there. Here is what is installed on my rig, and is working:
fglrx-amdcccle 2:8.600-Oubuntu2
fglrx-kernel-source 2:8.600-Oubuntu2
fglrx-modaliases 2:8.600-Oubuntu2
jockey-gtk 0.5-Oubuntu10
jockey-common 0.5-Oubuntu10
xorg-driver-fglrx 2:8.600-Oubuntu2
I tried a bunch of things to fix this problem, so maybe something I have forgotten is also needed to fix it for others.
I also had trouble with Google Earth and ATI driver, but found links in Ubuntu community to fix. Can't remember where, but it included screenshots, and some code to fix the ATI bug for Google Earth. Emailing ATI next to request better driver support.

[Bob Fletcher (rfletcher8626)]

More info on fix:
in terminal, used code: Xorg -version

X.Org X Server 1.6.0
Release Date: 2009-2-25
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.24-15-server x86_64 Ubuntu
Current Operating System: Linux fletch-desktop 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:58:03 UTC 2009 x86_64
Build Date: 09 April 2009 02:11:54AM
xorg-server 2:1.6.0-0ubuntu14 (<email address hidden>)
 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
 to make sure that you have the latest version.

WTF?? I have a server version?? an old one as well. Should this not be version 7. something?? Not sure what this means. System working. May leave alone for a while. If it ain't broke....

[Russell (russellp)]

My Xorg -version:

X.Org X Server 1.6.0
Release Date: 2009-2-25
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 2.6.24-23-server i686 Ubuntu
Current Operating System: Linux system 2.6.28-11-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 17 01:57:59 UTC 2009 i686
Build Date: 09 April 2009 02:10:02AM
xorg-server 2:1.6.0-0ubuntu14 (<email address hidden>)
 Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
 to make sure that you have the latest version.

I still only have the "failsafe" xorg.conf working with no fglrx as it totally breaks.

[beaon (filc03)]

Thanks Bob! As soon as I get home I'll give your go a shot. Maybe collectively we can find out whats going on. My 3870 is only a year old, it's hard to believe they would already drop support on it.

[Wilfredo Ernesto Guerrero Campos (wolffkrieger)]

This happened to me as well. After recovering my screen I tried EnvyNG not sure how it would work with 9.04. Haven't done much testing yet, but so far I am able to use "Extra" Visual Effects.

[Russell (russellp)]

I'm currently running with the fglrx driver!

I needed to:

* Update the linux kernel to 2.6.28-12-generic (just out today)
* Install the hardware driver, as before
* reboot into safe mode
* copy /etc/ati/control.dpkg-bak to /etc/ati/control
* copy /etc/ati/amdpcsdb.default.dpkg-bak to /etc/ati/amdpcsdb
* reboot again

[beaon (filc03)]

Sorry for the delay Russel on this one. I am defiately going to try this out. Currently am trying to figure out how to upgrade to 2.6.28-12 as you have.

[Ákos Maróy (akos-maroy)]

interesting. I also did a re-install of linux-image-2.6.28-11-generic, but when I open the Hardware Drivers window, it says there are no proprietary drivers in use on this system, so I can't install the fglrx driver through this window.

installing xorg-driver-fgrlx manually basically breaks X

[gasman (gaspasser)]

Can confirm neither ATI driver from website version 9.3 (won't load) nor version 9.4 (breaks system) works. Likewise fglrx won't run my ATI Raedon X300 - breaks system causing display to become unreadable.

Need to restore using recovery mode command line "apt-get remove --purge xorg-driver-fglrx"

[Ákos Maróy (akos-maroy)]

it seems we are left in the cold with this one :(

the 'official' driver says our cards are legacy (mine is 2 years old actually, and it was the top of the line ATI laptop video card at that time), while they are 'too new' for the open source driver to handle it properly.

this is a major setback for such ATI users :(

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Bob,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/lucid.

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 366529

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

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[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

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