gdm chrashes on boot, karmic koala, nvidia driver

[Håvard Berland]

Binary package hint: gdm

I have had Karmic installed for a few days, working perfectly, but suddenly after a boot, gdm does not come up, after the white Ubuntu logo, I get a black screen.

Remote ssh-access reveals no problems with the X server (nvidia 185), but gdm has crashed.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Nov 2 17:44:00 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: gdm 2.28.1-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: gdm
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64

[Håvard Berland (berland)]

Output in /var/log/gdm/:0-slave.log

gdm-simple-slave[2168]: WARNING: Failed to get display id /org/gnome/DisplayManager/Display1: Message did not receive a reply (timeout by message bus)
gdm-simple-slave[2168]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_array_free: assertion `array' failed

[Håvard Berland (berland)]

I installed kubuntu-desktop, and then using kdm, I do not have the same issues, which should mean this is not a bug in the xorg-server/nvidia-driver. Switching back to gdm using 'dpkg-reconfigure gdm' gets the black screen back, switching to kdm again, and then it works fine.

[Markus Vuori (lite-deactivatedaccount)]

I'm experiencing this same problem, and logs look quite similar.

[Markus Vuori (lite-deactivatedaccount)]

Information on the graphics adapter:

markus@ben:~$ lspci -v | grep -A9 -i vga
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage Pro AGP 1X/2X (rev 5c)
        Subsystem: ATI Technologies Inc Device 0080
        Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 66, IRQ 11
        Memory at 41000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=16M]
        I/O ports at 1000 [size=256]
        Memory at 40000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 40020000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel modules: atyfb

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Hmm, it is interesting that it works with kdm but not gdm. Perhaps it is a compositing bug. With the gdm session, if you disable compiz does it boot properly?

Guessing this is actually an -nvidia bug since I see you have that kernel module loaded, but it might be a bug in compiz or something in gnome.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Also please run apport-collect 471282 to attach the debugging files. Since this was filed against gdm initially it missed including stuff we need for X bugs.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Btw, from the syslog output, there are some calls into glib routines, which lends weight to it being a gnome component failing, however a lot of the debug symbols appear to be missing. The call prior to the crash looks like an invalid pointer loose somewhere:

Nov 2 17:42:56 htpc gdm[2565]: #3 <signal handler called>
Nov 2 17:42:56 htpc gdm[2565]: #4 0x00007fade9b1cdba in strchr () from /lib/libc.so.6

I think that's as deep as we can go with the information provided so far. What would really help would be to have a full backtrace - see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Backtracing for guidance. Although, I'm not 100% sure it is X that is crashing, since X does not use glib... so first I would suggest identifying exactly what is crashing, and then get a backtrace of that, and then refile this bug against that component so it can be further investigated.

[Håvard Berland (berland)]

Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
MachineType: System manufacturer System Product Name
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 (not installed)
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.31-14-generic root=UUID=07bc4f4d-164b-42bf-a07d-53c82afa95b2 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 xserver-xorg 1:7.4+3ubuntu7
 libgl1-mesa-glx 7.6.0-1ubuntu4
 libdrm2 2.4.14-1ubuntu1
 xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2
 xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.99+git20090929.7968e1fb-0ubuntu1
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
XsessionErrors: (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:2193): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
dmi.bios.date: 08/28/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: American Megatrends Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 0413
dmi.board.asset.tag: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
dmi.board.name: M3N78-EM
dmi.board.vendor: ASUSTeK Computer INC.
dmi.board.version: Rev X.0x
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: Asset-1234567890
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Chassis Manufacture
dmi.chassis.version: Chassis Version
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAmericanMegatrendsInc.:bvr0413:bd08/28/2008:svnSystemmanufacturer:pnSystemProductName:pvrSystemVersion:rvnASUSTeKComputerINC.:rnM3N78-EM:rvrRevX.0x:cvnChassisManufacture:ct3:cvrChassisVersion:
dmi.product.name: System Product Name
dmi.product.version: System Version
dmi.sys.vendor: System manufacturer
fglrx: Not loaded
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 architecture: x86_64kernel: 2.6.31-14-generic

[Håvard Berland (berland)]

I have installed some debug packages (libglib-2.0-0-dbg, libc-6-dbg, xserver-xorg-core, libg11-mesa-dri-bug) and obtained more information in syslog.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Thanks for all this additional information, this does help. So from the syslog except it is a segfault in gdm itself. Refiling against gdm for further analysis.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, your crash report is either missing or challenging to deal with as a '.crash' file. Please follow these instructions to have apport report a new bug about your crash that can be dealt with by the automatic retracer.

 If you are running the Ubuntu Stable Release you might need to enable apport in /etc/default/apport and restart.

 If you are using Ubuntu with the Gnome desktop environment - launch nautilus and navigate to your /var/crash directory and double click on the crash report you wish to submit.

 If you are using Kubuntu or Xubuntu you can file the crash using /usr/share/apport/apport-qt --crash-file=/var/crash/_my_crash_report.crash in a terminal - where _my_crash_report.crash is the crash you would like to report.
 I'm closing this bug report since the process outlined above will automatically open a new bug report which can then dealt with more efficiently. Thanks in advance for your cooperation and understanding.

[Håvard Berland (berland)]

Bug refiled as per Sebastien Bachers comment:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/477724