No login screen (mutter silently goes headless) on some AMD GPUs

[frenchy82]

On a fresch install, ubuntu stop and freeze before gdm is opened
With no splah i have "started user manager for uid 121" and then it freeze

need to uncomment WaylandEnable=false in custom.conf to start ubuntu so with xorg.

lspci -nn | grep VGA

return

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Barts PRO [Radeon HD 6850] [1002:6739]

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: gnome-shell 3.26.1-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-15.16-generic 4.13.4
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-15-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Oct 14 07:36:30 2017
DisplayManager: gdm3
GsettingsChanges:
 b'org.gnome.shell' b'favorite-apps' b"['firefox.desktop', 'thunderbird.desktop', 'rhythmbox.desktop', 'org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop', 'org.gnome.Software.desktop', 'org.gnome.Terminal.desktop', 'libreoffice-calc.desktop', 'libreoffice-writer.desktop', 'simple-scan.desktop']"
 b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'gtk-im-module' b"'gtk-im-context-simple'"
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-10-13 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Beta amd64 (20171012)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Yvon TANGUY (vono22)]

Hi

I have the same problem, or at least the same consequences.

Maybe related to #1723602 ?

I no longer have an Radeon HD 6850 (since 2 weeks ^^), but an RX 560.

I tried weston a little bit to know if it was a wayland problem, but weston works fine. I can launch some GTK apps on weston (gedit, nautilus ...), Firefox & Libreoffice don't run, even with xwayland.so module activated.

It's just that gnome-shell (or gdm) don't display anything. The screen stay at is at the moment it launched.

[Yvon TANGUY (vono22)]

With the debug option enabled in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf
journalctl -u gdm.service

[Yvon TANGUY (vono22)]

More log:
journalctl -b -4 > gdm-wayland-full-log.txt

I had to reboot with sys magic key (alt + print screen + b)

[amano (jyaku)]

Even after the updates of today (with the new kernel and the gnome-shell crash fix) the boot splash is getting stuck most of the time (certainly 3 out of 4 tries).

Only switching to the nvidia 340 blob fixes that (then it boots reliably, not showing Plymouth at all).

I don't think that it is a Plymouth bug, but GDM crashing when trying to bring up Wayland.

Since it crashes that early I don't think that it is related to mutter or gnome-shell at all. Or does GDM use mutter these days?

[S]Does apport leave a crash log in /var/crash/ with Ubuntu freezing or crashing that early?[/S] EDIT: Nope, no crash log in /var/crash/ at all :(

A regression in X? In Mesa?

[amano (jyaku)]

For me it worked reliably the whole development cycle until the week leading up to the 7th of October. It is borked just for about a week now. On the 5th of October I remember it being fine, it was borked when starting Ubuntu up on the morning of October 7th.

Now it seems like a dealbreaker worth debugging (if I knew where to start).

[amano (jyaku)]

If I get past Plymouth and into GDM (I have to try 4 times to succeed), I can log into the “Ubuntu“ session reliably. So I think that this bug is rather a GDM one than a gnome-shell one.

[amano (jyaku)]

Rather a GDM bug. I it doesn't get stuck on Plymouth, it starts up the “Ubuntu“ gnome-shell session reliably for me.

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

Same here, all worked fine until 6th October, since 7th impossible to boot : screen stays frozen at the Ubuntu logo step, nothing works (even Ctrl Alt F1).

Last line says "Started User Manager for UID 121"

lspci -nn | grep VGA
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Cape Verde XT [Radeon HD 7770/8760 / R7 250X] [1002:683d]

Today I booted on a USB and with chroot I updated my main Ubuntu 17.10 partition, it didn't solve the issue...

[frenchy82 (cartes)]

Xavier , as a workaround you can use the option nomodeset as boot option and then disable wayland in custom.conf to start with xorg

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue there seems with amd cards?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

The dates in comments #7 and #10 make me suspect the Mesa upgrade that was released on 5 October.

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

Yes, for me all worked fine until 6th October, on this Friday evening I did the 17.10 updates of the week, and on 7th morning the start process was frozen on the "Ubuntu" screen - I'm sure I didn't make the updates on the 5th, so it could be this Mesa upgrade.

[Timo Aaltonen (tjaalton)]

Did you have 4.13 kernel before the upgrade? If not sure, try mainline 4.12 build from

http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/

[amano (jyaku)]

Timo, i was on 4.13.0.12 when noticing the regression. And reverted back to 4.13.0.11, which didn't change anything. So I don't think that a kernel update broke my Wayland.

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

As suggested in french forum, I looked at the previous version :

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mesa/17.2.1-0ubuntu1/+build/13388627

Attached is the file with 'apt policy' results

[amano (jyaku)]

[code]
amano@amano-desktop:~$ uname -r
4.12.13-041213-generic
[/code]

It took 3 tries to bring up GDM.
So confirmed that this isn't a kernel regression.

[amano (jyaku)]

amano@amano-desktop:~$ uname -r
4.12.13-041213-generic

It took 3 tries to bring up GDM.
So confirmed that this isn't a kernel regression.

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

I tried to boot from grub on kernels :

4.13.0-12
4.13.0-11
4.12.0-13
4.12.0-12
4.11.0-13

Still have the boot bug.

I also tried to downgrade Mutter :

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mutter/3.26.0+20170925~ea214fb-1ubuntu1/+build/13517498

sudo dpkg -i gir1.2-mutter-1_3.26.0+20170925~ea214fb-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb libmutter-1-0_3.26.0+20170925~ea214fb-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb mutter-common_3.26.0+20170925~ea214fb-1ubuntu1_all.deb mutter_3.26.0+20170925~ea214fb-1ubuntu1_amd64.deb

Same : freeze on start.

Here is the /var/log/apt/history.log from 02 to 06/10 (the one which made the bug appear, after it's update from 15/10 in chroot), I hope it helps...

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

Tried also reverts on :
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-ati/1:7.9.0-1/+build/12843201
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server/2:1.19.3-1ubuntu6/+build/13313736

Still boot bug...

Hope I did not miss an instruction which would eliminate the good direction to solve this (will verify the apt policy later) !

Attached an extract of the /var/log/syslog (before and after I tried the revert actions to understand bug).

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I don't really understand comment #17-#18 but it looks like nobody has successfully tested downgrading Mesa yet (per comment #13).

You may have to download and install the previous version manually:
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/mesa/17.2.1-0ubuntu1/+build/13388627

That's the version which was in 17.10 until 5/6 October.

[frenchy82 (cartes)]

I've made too the revert to mesa 17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64 but it didn't help

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks. We can /probably/ exclude Mesa then.

Next I would suggest downgrading mutter which is used to render gdm3 (and because the 3.26.1 release happened at the time of the bug too) but comment #21 seems to suggest that's already been tried.

Still, we can't definitively exclude Mesa or Mutter fully because there's always a chance that some mistake was made during testing. And there's also a chance that different people are experiencing different bugs. Please keep experimenting...

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

Daniel, sorry, I did not complete my post after #18 and apt policy result - we were discussing with didrocks and frenchy82 on the French forum with the details, I tried to resume here all steps in order other people and developers involved in bug also got the informations.

http://forum.ubuntu-fr.org/viewtopic.php?pid=21810017#p21810017

So I did (always in chroot mode) :
sudo dpkg -i libegl1-mesa_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb libgbm1_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb libgl1-mesa-dri_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb libgl1-mesa-glx_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb libglapi-mesa_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb libgles2-mesa_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb libwayland-egl1-mesa_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb libxatracker2_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb mesa-va-drivers_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb mesa-vdpau-drivers_17.2.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb

It downgraded the 10 packages installed in 17.2.1 version.

But when I rebooted normally, it was still frozen at Ubuntu screen and message 'Started User Manager for UID 121'

My graphic card : Gallium 0.4 on AMD CAPE VERDE (DRM 2.49.0 / 4.10.0-19-generic, LLVM 4.0.0)

After dpwngrading mesa, I tried downgrading mutter, xserver-xorg-video-ati, xorg-server, then booting on the grub to older kernels : nothing worked, I still have the bug on startup.

You're right, I don't know if I missed something on the instructions to come back on previous versions with the risk to eliminate the good direction to search, or if bug comes from something else...

I was afraid of that, but frenchy82 test seems to confirm downgrading mesa is not enough to solve the problem. I can continue to do some testings if you need.

[frenchy82 (cartes)]

i've tested to revert mesa AND mutter but didn't help

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

A new idea: libdrm was also upgraded on 5 October:

  https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libdrm/2.4.83-1

That might cause this problem since it provides:

  libdrm-amdgpu1

So try downgrading to:

  https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libdrm/2.4.82-1/+build/13171669

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

After having also downgraded libdrm (of course I did not reapply updates on my main system after other reverts), it still doesn't start and stays at Ubuntu screen (UID 121)...

Logs attached to help.

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

In /etc/gdm3/custom.conf, on [debug] section, I activated Enable=true, here is the complete startup log.

But following command didn't work in chroot (to get more infos from gdm) :

root@ubuntu:/# sudo journalctl -b -u gdm
No journal files were found.
-- No entries --

[amano (jyaku)]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1723619 is (sadly) not my issue. It took again 4 tries to have GDM appearing :(

Having me regress at the same time as the many ATI users seems too much of an incident.

[amano (jyaku)]

amano@amano-desktop:~$ uname -r
4.14.0-rc5-lp1723619+revert

So the revert there in the patched 4.14 kernel doesn't affect me :(

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

My home is encrypted (ecryptFS) so gdm can't access to ~/.config/monitors.xml

There is not another one :
root@ubuntu:/# sudo updatedb
root@ubuntu:/# locate monitors.xml
root@ubuntu:/#

I added to /etc/environment :
export MUTTER_VERBOSE=1
export MUTTER_VERBOSE=1
export MUTTER_DEBUG=1
export MUTTER_USE_LOGFILE=/tmp/mutterlogs
export MUTTER_DEBUG_SM=1
export MUTTER_DEBUG_BUTTON_GRABS=1
export WAYLAND_DEBUG=1

Here is the Mutter log.

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

And the last syslog...

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

Tried to downgrade Gnome Shell :

sudo dpkg -i gnome-shell_3.26.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb gnome-shell-common_3.26.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb

root@ubuntu:/home/GShell# sudo dpkg -i gnome-shell_3.26.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb gnome-shell-common_3.26.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb
dpkg: avertissement: dégradation (« downgrade ») de gnome-shell depuis 3.26.1-0ubuntu3 vers 3.26.0-0ubuntu2
(Lecture de la base de données... 343326 fichiers et répertoires déjà installés.)
Préparation du dépaquetage de gnome-shell_3.26.0-0ubuntu2_amd64.deb ...
Dépaquetage de gnome-shell (3.26.0-0ubuntu2) sur (3.26.1-0ubuntu3) ...
dpkg: avertissement: dégradation (« downgrade ») de gnome-shell-common depuis 3.26.1-0ubuntu3 vers 3.26.0-0ubuntu2
Préparation du dépaquetage de gnome-shell-common_3.26.0-0ubuntu2_all.deb ...
Dépaquetage de gnome-shell-common (3.26.0-0ubuntu2) sur (3.26.1-0ubuntu3) ...
Paramétrage de gnome-shell-common (3.26.0-0ubuntu2) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour gconf2 (3.2.6-4ubuntu1) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour libglib2.0-0:amd64 (2.54.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Paramétrage de gnome-shell (3.26.0-0ubuntu2) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour libc-bin (2.26-0ubuntu2) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu5) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour desktop-file-utils (0.23-1ubuntu3) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour mime-support (3.60ubuntu1) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour man-db (2.7.6.1-2) ...

It works, I can login on the GS Ubuntu session !

[amano (jyaku)]

So with this gnome-shell downgrade you can get past Plymouth into GDM reliably? I will try at home as well...

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

Yes, I donwgraded in chroot Gnome Shell to this version :
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-shell/3.26.0-0ubuntu2/+build/13517504

After it boots normally and I get the login screen, then the Ubuntu Gnome Shell session, all works.

Developers are testing commits: I tried the 2 here (reverse of Shell headless mode)
https://launchpad.net/~didrocks/+archive/ubuntu/ppa/+build/13591531

And it still goes until the end of the boot without freezing anymore

valeryan24@valeryan24-desktop:~/Bureau/GShell$ sudo dpkg -i gnome-shell_3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1_amd64.deb gnome-shell-common_3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1_all.deb
[sudo] Mot de passe de valeryan24 :
(Lecture de la base de données... 343326 fichiers et répertoires déjà installés.)
Préparation du dépaquetage de gnome-shell_3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1_amd64.deb ...
Dépaquetage de gnome-shell (3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1) sur (3.26.0-0ubuntu2) ...
Préparation du dépaquetage de gnome-shell-common_3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1_all.deb ...
Dépaquetage de gnome-shell-common (3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1) sur (3.26.0-0ubuntu2) ...
Paramétrage de gnome-shell-common (3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour gconf2 (3.2.6-4ubuntu1) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour libglib2.0-0:amd64 (2.54.1-1ubuntu1) ...
Paramétrage de gnome-shell (3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour libc-bin (2.26-0ubuntu2) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu5) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour desktop-file-utils (0.23-1ubuntu3) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour mime-support (3.60ubuntu1) ...
Traitement des actions différées (« triggers ») pour man-db (2.7.6.1-2) ...

apt policy gnome-shell gnome-shell-common

valeryan24@valeryan24-desktop:~$ apt policy gnome-shell gnome-shell-common
gnome-shell:
  Installé : 3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1
  Candidat : 3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1
 Table de version :
 *** 3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.26.1-0ubuntu3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main amd64 Packages
     3.25.91-0ubuntu5~ppa1 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-desktop/transitions/ubuntu artful/main amd64 Packages
gnome-shell-common:
  Installé : 3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1
  Candidat : 3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1
 Table de version :
 *** 3.26.1-0ubuntu4~revertheadless1 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.26.1-0ubuntu3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu artful/main i386 Packages
     3.25.91-0ubuntu5~ppa1 500
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-desktop/transitions/ubuntu artful/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-desktop/transitions/ubuntu artful/main i386 Packages

valeryan24@valeryan24-desktop:~$ sudo modetest
sudo: modetest : commande introuvable

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package gnome-shell - 3.26.1-0ubuntu4

---------------
gnome-shell (3.26.1-0ubuntu4) artful; urgency=medium

  * revert_023b50e7a7002226d6176bede22930d96da074a9.patch,
    revert_5c37facc083078564faaeec4aa58084857c56ee1.patch,
    and comment git_layout-unset-when-headless.patch:
    - Revert 2 upstream commits and cherry-pick to remove headless mode
      which shadows Shell crashing and thus fallback to Xorg, resulting in
      some user configs not having any UI on startup. (LP: #1723577)

 -- Didier Roche <email address hidden> Wed, 18 Oct 2017 15:05:32 +0200

[Xavier Guillot (valeryan-24)]

I confirm that upstream commits to Gnome Shell and Mutter also solve the bug, I can normally boot and login on Wayland session (see log Upstream-1710 for details) !

[amano (jyaku)]

The nvidia user (me) can happily confirm that this bug is fixed now :)

What a nastie: A mutter crash that leads to the startup of the X.org fallback session which can't be displayed due to a gnome-shell regression. Wow. No wonder that this was so hard to diagnose. And timely cropping up just before final freeze to keep the fun alive.