"compiz-real" crashes during booting

[Stefan K.]

Binary package hint: compiz

I installed a fresh version of Alpha-5 karmic on my testing partition. After rebooting, GDM came up, I logged in and after some seconds X froze. Switching to tty1-6 is not possible, the mouse is not responding, but login by ssh still worked.

So I disabled GDM and ran "startx" on tty after rebooting. After a while it says that "compiz-real" has crashed. I tried to collect the data by apport, but he says: "The program crashed on assertion failure, but the message could not be retrieved." Hmm, maybe a missing -dbg package? (compiz has none). The desktop can be killed from a tty by: "killall -u [username]".

Any following login work fine. I think after one login he reminds that compiz does not work. Activating desktop effects does not work as expected.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
CompizPlugins: [core,ccp,dbus,place,mousepoll,gnomecompat,move,resize,decoration,png,svg,imgjpeg,text,neg,video,wall,snap,animation,scale,scaleaddon,expo,staticswitcher,regex,resizeinfo,workarounds,ezoom,vpswitch,extrawm,fade,session]
Date: Thu Sep 10 12:47:10 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: Acer TravelMate 220
Package: compiz-core 1:0.8.2-0ubuntu16
PciDisplay: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82830 CGC [Chipset Graphics Controller] [8086:3577] (rev 04)
ProcCmdLine: root=LABEL=ubuntu_testing ro
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 SHELL=/bin/sh
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-10.30-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.4+3ubuntu5
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.6.0~git20090817.7c422387-0ubuntu3
 libdrm2 2.4.13-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.8.1-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.99+git20090825.fc74e119-0ubuntu1
SourcePackage: compiz
UdevDb: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-10-generic i686
dmi.bios.date: 04/17/2002
dmi.bios.vendor: ACER
dmi.bios.version: V3.3 R01-A0I3 EN
dmi.board.name: Intel Almador-M
dmi.board.vendor: Acer
dmi.board.version: -1
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Acer
dmi.chassis.version: -1
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnACER:bvrV3.3R01-A0I3EN:bd04/17/2002:svnAcer:pnTravelMate220:pvr-1:rvnAcer:rnIntelAlmador-M:rvr-1:cvnAcer:ct10:cvr-1:
dmi.product.name: TravelMate 220
dmi.product.version: -1
dmi.sys.vendor: Acer
system: distro = Ubuntu, architecture = i686, kernel = 2.6.31-10-generic

[Stefan K. (archilles)]

Well, on Alpha-6 I have a different behaviour. If GNOME is launched by GDM, it always fails. The desktop is frozen, but the system can be rebooted by SysRq. Somewhere I read that the 830M chipset of Intel is blacklisted. Maybe he fails to follow that order.

Again I disabled GDM and started GNOME by "startx" on a tty. On the first boot the "compiz-real" message is now gone and I have a blank desktop. No panels or icons. But ALT+F2 works and I can run any program like "xterm" or "nautilus". After stopping it by pressing CTRL+C on the tty and restart GNOME, the desktop loads fine. Due to blacklisting the desktop effects cannot be activated (didn't try to force them). He searches for a driver, waits a moment and says "cannot enable desktop effects".

LXDE without compiz works though (as expected).

I am not very experienced in debugging a desktop. Is there a way to enable debugging on GDM and GNOME to see what they do while initializing? A log file can be written by sync+unmount from SysRq.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

Not sure what is going on with X or GDM but your .xsession-errors file shows the same problem as bug 414535 as far as compiz goes.

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

No video cards/chips are currently blacklisted in compiz in karmic. Can you edit your /etc/default/local and make sure LANG is set to something? LANG="en_US.UTF-8" should work. Perhaps the rest of the system is not responding well to compiz dying like it does.

[Stefan K. (archilles)]

Sorry, for being late. I was busy. Today I tried the current beta version, because alpha-6 is quite "old" now. It seems to be fixed, whether LANG is set or not in /etc/locale. After a fresh install GDM boots up and loads the desktop correctly.

You said no chips are blacklisted, but compiz says:

$ compiz
Checking for Xgl: not present.
xset q doesn't reveal the location of the log file. Using fallback /var/log/Xorg.0.log
Blacklisted PCIID '8086:3577' found
aborting and using fallback: /usr/bin/metacity

This is strange :)

[Travis Watkins (amaranth)]

Ah, right, since my last comment we blacklisted the intel 845 again due to driver issues. That's all the fix this bug is going to get, unfortunately. At least it doesn't lock up X anymore.

[Stefan K. (archilles)]

That´s okay. I never intended to use desktop effects on my old buddy anyway. Thanks.