"Fatal server error: no screens found" w/dual nvidia Quadro 1700

[Ted Kord]

During installation, I am given a text login screen and installation stops. [ubuntu@ubuntu:$]

I removed the -quietsplash option and found that the installation stops whilst trying to launch 'ubiquity'.

An 'XServer Error ' is thrown with the message: X server failed to start after 60 seconds.

A few other tests pass and then installation gives me a login prompt as above.

I tried using the 'Alternatives' install-CD; same problem!

However, the installation went smoothly when I installed Ubuntu 8.04.
I then upgraded from this to 8.10. This went fine until the system rebooted giving me the same problem as above - a login screen with no X.

My system specs:
Dell Precision T7400
Intel Xeon Processor @ 3.2 GHz Quad Core
Two 512 Nvidia Quadro 1700 graphics cards.
4 GB RAM.

[Kyle Cheung (kylezoa)]

That has happened to me during installation once. Turned out my disc didn't burn the iso correctly. Do a MD5 sum check to determine if the disc checks out ok.

[Ted Kord (teddy-kord)]

Already did this. I get the same problems with the 'Alternatives-CD'. Besides, the last problem occured from a direct upgrade from 8.04 involving no disks.

So, I get the problem with and without the disks.

[goto (gotolaunchpad)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please attach your X server configuration file (/etc/X11/xorg.conf) and X server log file (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) to the bug report as individual uncompressed file attachments using the "Attachment:" box below. Thanks in advance.

[goto (gotolaunchpad)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[Janne Moren (jan-moren-gmail)]

I get the exact same thing. Dell T7400, two Xeon quad core, two Nvidia Quadro 1700 cards. The installation CD starts booting with the progress bar and so on, but drops into a console when it tries to start X.

If I do "startx" manually, I get "Fatal server error: no screens found".

"lspci" lists the graphics cards:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Quadro FX 1700 (rev a1)
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Quadro FX 1700 (rev a1)

Obviously no xorg.conf file other than the just about empty one on the install disk, and I can't really attach the log file as it's during install boot and I have no way of copying it over (and I'm not about to type it all in manually). A few highlights:

"(II) Cannot locate a core pointer device"
        - (and same for keyboard), but that's not a real issue I suspect

"(!!) more than one possible primary device found"

        - lists both cards with resource ranges and so on

- loads a bunch of extensions

"Primary device is not PCI"
"(==) Matched vesa for the autoconfigured driver"
"(==) Assigned the driver to the xf86ConfigLayout"
"(II) LoadModule: "vesa""

...

"(II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa"
"(II) Primary Device is: "
"(WW) Falling back to old probe method for vesa"
"(EE) No devices detected"

"Fatal server error:"
"no screens found"

This seems to be the point of error. I will try yanking out one of the cards and see if I can get it to install. That's a temporary solution of course; I do need both cards working at some point.

[Janne Moren (jan-moren-gmail)]

Yanking one of the cards solves it. Haven't put it back in yet since it seems (per the original reporter above) that it won't work.

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

Thanks for the extra info Janne. Are either of you able to test the 9.04 beta (http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/jaunty/beta) or the Release Candidate out on April 16th, to see if Jaunty fixes the issue?

[Janne Moren (jan-moren-gmail)]

"Are either of you able to test the 9.04 beta or the Release Candidate out on April 16th, to see if Jaunty fixes the issue?"

Hmm. This is a work machine and I rely on it to be up and working all day long. I don't have a happy history of release upgrades with Ubuntu so far so I'd much prefer to stay un-upgraded as long as I can.

If you think it is really critical to test it I can come in and do so over a weekend, if there's a way to take a "snapshot" of the current system and restore to it if the upgrade breaks anything else.

[Michael Rooney (mrooney)]

Janne, perhaps I read the bug wrong; I assumed the issue appeared just
attempting to boot from the livecd, in which case you could just burn
the installer CD and attempt to boot from it, which wouldn't change
your existing setup at all. Is that wrong?

[Janne Moren (jan-moren-gmail)]

Ah, live CD - forgot about that. Of course that'll make testing a lot easier. I'll test the release candidate once it's out on Thursday.

[linuxloon (linuxloon)]

I'm having the same Issue. HP xw4400 with dual Nvidia NV44 [Quadro NVS 285]

Work's with one card in place. Fails with both cards. Tried adding second card back in after Nvidia drivers were in place. No luck. Did'nt work with a livecd for 9.04 beta or fedora 11 beta. Here is part of the Xorg.0.log I have the Xorg.0.log, messages, syslog, kern.log and the output from lshw.txt available it it will help.

Ubuntu 8.10 64bit with Nvidia driver loaded

Parts From Xorg.0.log while trying to boot with both cards in place.

(==) Using config file: "/etc/X11/xorg.conf"
(==) ServerLayout "Layout0"
(**) |-->Screen "Screen0" (0)
(**) | |-->Monitor "Monitor0"
(**) | |-->Device "Device0"
(**) |-->Input Device "Keyboard0"
(**) |-->Input Device "Mouse0"
(**) Option "Xinerama" "0"
(==) Automatically adding devices
(==) Automatically enabling devices
..
II) Loader running on linux
(++) using VT number 7

(!!) More than one possible primary device found
(--) PCI: (0@1:0:0) nVidia Corporation NV44 [Quadro NVS 285] rev 161, Mem @ 0xdc000000/16777216, 0xd0000000/134217728, 0xdd000000/16777216, BIOS @ 0x????????/131072
(--) PCI: (0@16:0:0) nVidia Corporation NV44 [Quadro NVS 285] rev 161, Mem @ 0xd9000000/16777216, 0xe0000000/134217728, 0xda000000/16777216, BIOS @ 0x????????/131072
(II) System resource ranges:
 [0] -1 0 0xffffffff - 0xffffffff (0x1) MX[B]
 [1] -1 0 0x000f0000 - 0x000fffff (0x10000) MX[B]
 [2] -1 0 0x000c0000 - 0x000effff (0x30000) MX[B]
 [3] -1 0 0x00000000 - 0x0009ffff (0xa0000) MX[B]
 [4] -1 0 0x0000ffff - 0x0000ffff (0x1) IX[B]
 [5] -1 0 0x00000000 - 0x00000000 (0x1) IX[B]
..
(II) NVIDIA dlloader X Driver 180.11 Wed Nov 26 10:59:18 PST 2008
(II) NVIDIA Unified Driver for all Supported NVIDIA GPUs
(II) Primary Device is:
(EE) No devices detected.

Fatal server error:
no screens found

[Brian G. Peterson (brian-braverock)]

I've got the same problem with Ubuntu 9.04 on a new install. Works with one card, fails with two.

dual nVidia Quadro FX 570 cards in my case.

I think that xorg.conf should be able to manually modified to choose one display as primary, but I haven't figured out how yet.

nvidia-settings should also work, if I can figure out how to address the display so that I can run it.

[Brian G. Peterson (brian-braverock)]

Found this:

http://www.rikertothebridge.com/2009/04/xorg-server-fails-to-start-on-ubuntu-with-more-than-one-nvidia-gfx-card-in-machine/

Adding a "Busid" line to the Device section of xorg.conf lets me start the X server

lspci lists things like this:

"lspci" lists the graphics cards:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Quadro FX 570
02:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Quadro FX 570

The corresponding Busid lines would be:

Busid "PCI:1:0:0"

or

Busid "PCI:2:0:0"

Changing xorg.conf to add the Busid gave me a mirrored desktop on two monitors.

After this I tried to run nvidia-xconfig, but this resulted in a blank screen on attempting to restart the X server.

nvidia-xconfig tries to load the "nvidia" driver, but this fails. I had to revert to the "nv" driver.

[Brian G. Peterson (brian-braverock)]

OK, I've gotten everything working in my local environment.

I needed to get DEvice entries placed manually in my xorg.conf using Busid lines, and then nvidia-settings was able to vbe used. I've attached the working xorg.conf file to this bug.