Black screen with radeon KMS

[Alexander Hunziker]

Using the stack from the PPA mentioned in Bryce Harringtons blogpost (http://www2.bryceharrington.org:8080/drupal/node/84), and the kernel parameter radeon.modeset=1, I get the following problems:

* i get a message that the kernel parameter is unrecognised at the beginning of the boot process
* usplash starts showing, and when the progress bar is at about 20% ( i assume that's when the X server starts), the screen turns black. you can see by the HDD activity, that the boot process probably continues just fine, except nothing is shown on screen.

This is on a Thinkpad T60 with ATI X1400 graphics.

[Robert Hooker (sarvatt)]

Do you have something like cryptsetup hooking into usplash? Is the usplash screen higher resolution than normal? Can you ssh into the machine from another to obtain the dmesg output and /var/log/Xorg.0.log from the machine it happens by any chance? You can ignore the message about unrecognized parameter, it's because its a module and not available at the start because its not built into the kernel, but the parameter does get passed to the module later.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

No cryptsetup. I have the usplash resolution set to the native resolution of my screen (SXGA+, 1440x1050) in /etc/usplash.conf. I'm not sure if it was I who set this or some installation routine... I'll try removing that file and see what happens. As to the SSH, I'll try that at home, cannot do it here.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

In Xorg.0.log I can find:

(II) [KMS] drm report modesetting isn't supported.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

I reinstalled my system anew because I feared some old cruft might cause this problem. That's not the case, the new installation behaves the same way.

In the kernel log I cannot find anything particularly useful:

[drm] radeon default to kernel modesetting DISABLED.
[drm] Initialized radeon 1.30.0 20080528 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 0

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

It turns out that if I use the kernel from the PPA which has KMS enabled by default, my system boots fine with KMS. If I use the default kernel which has KMS disabled by default, and change the boot manager accordingly, it won't work and I get the messages above.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Can you please attach your full dmesg output and Xorg.0.log?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automatic notification.]

A new version of the -ati driver is now available in Karmic.

This is a significant update to -ati which brings in kernel mode-setting
(currently disabled) and scores of fixes for DRI2, EXA, etc.

I've posted the new version of this driver to the following PPA,
would you mind testing it and seeing if it resolves the bug you
reported?

  https://edge.launchpad.net/~bryceharrington/+archive/ppa/+sourcepub/709908/+listing-archive-extra

If you're not running this release of Ubuntu, you can try booting the Karmic
LiveCD and loading the PPA onto it, and then log out/in to restart X.
ISOs are available at http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/releases/

After testing Karmic, report back here whether it's still an issue or not,
and if it is please post a fresh Xorg.0.log and 'dmesg' output.

Note there could be new bugs... please file these as new reports using
the command 'ubuntu-bug xorg'.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

By manually setting radeon.modeset=1 in the grub config file, I was able to boot with KMS using the -ati driver from the KMS PPA (from August 5th)

With the newer driver mentioned above, I cannot boot anymore, I only get a black screen. I'll attach an Xorg.log of a boot with and without KMS.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Do you have an external screen connected, via VGA? If so please disconnect it.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

Indeed I did have when I generated those logs. I retried without an external screen connected - same behaviour. Attaching yet another log file.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Ok, that was anyway a little detail worth mentioning ;)

Are you sure the native resolution is 1440x1050? The EDID says 1400x1050.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Please also attach the dmesg output (or the correct /var/log/messages*) from when KMS gives a black screen.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

I have got black screens with KMS on X1300 myself, please check /var/log/gdm/\:0.log* for errors.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

Tormod, you're right about the native resolution. It's SXGA+ (1400x1050). I'll do my best to attach the requested logs soon.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

last line has an error which may point you into the right direction.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

/usr/bin/X: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers//radeon_drv.so: undefined symbol: radeon_bo_is_busy

Yes, exactly, this is the same as I saw at one point.

From Bryce's build log:
  CC radeon_exa.o
In file included from ../../src/radeon_exa.c:547:
../../src/radeon_exa_funcs.c: In function 'RADEONDownloadFromScreenCS':
../../src/radeon_exa_funcs.c:557: warning: implicit declaration of function 'radeon_bo_is_busy'

"radeon_bo_is_busy" appeared in libdrm 2009-08-22 but the driver was built with libdrm-radeon1 2.4.12+git20090801.45078630-0ubuntu1

I thought the symbol list magic would prevent this, but maybe we haven't got that right. Or upstream need to flag a dependency. For now, please try the libdrm packages from the xorg-edgers PPA.

[Alexander Hunziker (alex-hunziker)]

I can confirm that if I use the whole stack from the xorg-edgers PPA this issue is solved for me.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

This should be fixed with libdrm 2.4.13-1ubuntu1 in stock Karmic.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Actually, -ati has to be rebuilt against the new libdrm. Setting status to "Fix committed" in the sense of next upload will fix this.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

While we wait for a new snapshot or release, here is a no-change debdiff...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package xserver-xorg-video-ati - 1:6.12.99+git20090825.fc74e119-0ubuntu2

---------------
xserver-xorg-video-ati (1:6.12.99+git20090825.fc74e119-0ubuntu2) karmic; urgency=low

  * no-change rebuild against new libdrm (LP: #410058)

 -- Tormod Volden <email address hidden> Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:00:13 +0200

[Mr. Norel (sh1v4-0h)]

affects me in lucid

on a X1400 radeon (Toshiba a100 series),

adding radeon.modeset=0 as a kernel parameter is a workaround.

black screen (and some grey horizontal lines) occurs some time (1min+) after booting.
happened
-after loggin in (gdm) while loading my desktop (gnome)
-but as well when plymouth asks me for the password

It is possible to switch to a text-console (shift-alt-f3) blindly and reboot with ctrl-alt-del

this has been a problem for some weeks now:
I use radeon.modeset=0 now for some weeks. I waited with this bug-report because there has been some problem with gdm crashig always the first time I enter the login-password. This problem seems to be fixed with the plymouth update today. -> I tried again with KMS enabled(looks much prettier). still no luck (=black screen with grey lines).