black screen on boot with kernel 2.6.38-3.30

[Luka Renko]

After recent kernel upgrade to 2.6.38-3.30, I can no longer boot my system. I have LVM + dm-crypt setup, therefore I need to enter my dm-crypt password during boot. Instead of plymouth, I get just black screen.
Even if I start grub2 menu (holding Shift during boot), I just get corrupted screen (garbage), but even selecting older kernel on menu does not seem to help much (does not recover).

The only way I was able to workaround the problem was to boot from recovery CD, chroot to my / partition and remove linux-image-2.6.38-3-generic package and reinstall grub (grub-install /dev/sda) in order to get older vmlinuz.

Note also that there is similar (maybe related) bug 718044

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: linux-image-2.6.38-2-generic 2.6.38-2.29
Regression: Yes
Reproducible: Yes
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-2.29-generic 2.6.38-rc3
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-2-generic x86_64
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: lukar 1798 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/pcmC0D0p: lukar 1798 F...m pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf2620000 irq 46'
   Mixer name : 'Conexant CX20561 (Hermosa)'
   Components : 'HDA:14f15051,17aa20ff,00100000'
   Controls : 16
   Simple ctrls : 8
Card29.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:29 'ThinkPadEC'/'ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw 7XHT24WW-1.06'
   Mixer name : 'ThinkPad EC 7XHT24WW-1.06'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 1
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card29.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Console',0
   Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Mono: Playback [off]
Date: Mon Feb 14 08:05:55 2011
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=16ac97e6-961b-4a8f-b763-fc40aeccc5a4
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha amd64 (20110129)
MachineType: LENOVO 74705HG
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-2-generic root=/dev/mapper/plain-root ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-2.6.38-2-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.38-2-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.47
SourcePackage: linux
WifiSyslog:

dmi.bios.date: 03/10/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: 6DET63WW (3.13 )
dmi.board.name: 74705HG
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvr6DET63WW(3.13):bd03/10/2010:svnLENOVO:pn74705HG:pvrThinkPadX200s:rvnLENOVO:rn74705HG:rvrNotAvailable:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 74705HG
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X200s
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Luka Renko (lure)]

Note: all collected files are from succesful boot with older kernel.

[Andy Whitcroft (apw)]

@Luka -- you say "Even if I start grub2 menu (holding Shift during boot), I just get corrupted screen (garbage)", does this mean that the grub menu was corrupted at the time? You also say that selecting an older kernel did not help either. That tends to make me think we had a grub issue.

[Luka Renko (lure)]

Yes, it looked like that grub was trying to write text over garbled screen, so nothing was readable (while using 2.6.38-3).

Switching back to 2.6.38-2 kernel (removing 2.6.38-3 + grub-install to use older kernel) returned things back to normal - pymouth displayed bacground image (Kubuntu) + I got input prompt to enter my dm-crypt password.

[Luka Renko (lure)]

Additional note: on garbled screen, if I wanted to select (blindly) older kernel (I just did two Key-Down presses) and select, it did not get me to proper input prompt, so I was not able to workaround it that way.

[Luka Renko (lure)]

It seems that new plymouth package fixes it. Sorry for false alarm.