maverick: S3 savage (but also with vesa driver): X crash/restart after first switch to console and back, garbaged and unusable screen after second console switch

[Hans-Juergen Mauser]

Hello,

after running Ubuntu on two HP omnibook XE3-GC laptop machines successfully since version 9.04 (with only minor impacts), version 10.10 maverick has a severe problem with X since upgrading from 10.04 lucid. This type of machine has a S3 Savage/MX chip attached via AGP 2x.

Since upgrading, X does no more tolerate any switching to text mode, no matter if caused, for example, by changing to a text console or by energy saving like DPMS or setting the laptop to standby/suspend.

The first switch to text mode after the system has booted still works, but getting back to X afterwards results in an immediate shutdown and restart of X, so at least the session is gone and I am back at the gdm login screen.

If I try to switch to text mode for a second time, the screen gets garbaged, usually filled with little squares in rainbow-like colours, mainly in the colour range from red to orange. In this case there is no way out anymore - I only can try to login blindly n a text console as root and type "reboot", which still works, so the system does not hang.

Please remember that there was NO such problem in 10.04 lucid!

This behaviour can be reproduced with or without an xorg.conf, and it does not matter if I try to switch off DRI, GLX or disable even these modules. Or disable AGP and use PCI initialisation - it makes graphics slow but does not resolve the problem.

As I have two identical machines which show exactly the same behaviour, random hardware failure is NOT an issue.

Please don't hesitate to ask for any further information that is necessary. To me the problem is quite urgent as it makes normal system usage quite impossible.

Best regards,

Hans-Juergen Mauser

[Bernardo Olguin C. (berno-olguin)]

In my case:

Upgrading from Lucid Lynx. After grub and loading screen, the display (an old CRT - AOC Spectrum 4v) lights starts to blinking (a possible warning about Vsync or Hsync out of range.). Testing with an LCD Display (Samsung Syncmaster 510n) shows X working, but with Flickering. Trying to change resolution (from 1024x768 to 800x600), shows the same problem as Hans. X crash, no virtual consoles. Black screen.

Testing with "vesa" X works with the old CRT...on this moment i'm writing from it!
"vesa" it's activated from /etc/X11/xorg.conf - by the way, the CRT it's incorrectly detected. Fixed. Trying with "savage" after the correction, problem still appears. The crash problem with the virtual consoles still continues, even with vesa or savage.

Possibly an xserver-xorg issue?

[Bernardo Olguin C. (berno-olguin)]

P.S.: Sorry for the spelling check. Using Xubuntu 10.10 Maverick.

 lspci:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. VT8375 [ProSavage8 KM266/KL266]

[Hans-Juergen Mauser (hjmauser)]

Hello,

for me it worked to downgrade all X servers (38 packages, done automatically by dependencies as soon as the savage server is marked for downgrading) to the latest lucid 10.04 version. This stopped the strange X crashes due to switching to text consoles or blank screen / DPMS (in my case with an S3 savage card).

So it is definitely an issue with the xorg packages. The standby/suspend issue, however, is NOT resolved by this workaround, but screensaver, DPMS screen off and any text console switching works flawlessly (and the card is faster than ever before).

The standby/suspend issues seem to be able to be addressed by fiddling with uswsusp, pm-utils (downgrade) and laptop-mode-utils.

Anyway, the bugginess of maverick is quite annoying - not only in this case.

[komputes (komputes)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please execute the following command, as it will automatically gather debugging information, in a terminal:
apport-collect 660301
When reporting bugs in the future please use apport by using 'ubuntu-bug' and the name of the package affected. You can learn more about this functionality at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ReportingBugs.

[Bernardo Olguin C. (berno-olguin)]

So, let's make some updates then...

After this post, from that date, i try with different configs and stuff. Finally, configuring xorg.conf with some "modeline" on the screen section, i got to make the new driver work...but...

At the beggining, nothing wrong. A little more slow than Lucid, but hell, it works. Then, start to play with the driver.

On "glxinfo", everything's fine, except for an...
----------------------------------------------------------------
X Error of failed request: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
  Major opcode of failed request: 136 (XFree86-DRI)
  Minor opcode of failed request: 9 ()
  Resource id in failed request: 0x5000004
  Serial number of failed request: 44
  Current serial number in output stream: 44
-----------------------------------------------------------------
...let's assume that this error it was, possibly, by the terminal emulator from XFCE.

Next, "glxgears". Garbage screen, black screen, X reboot. Back to the login screen.

Opening evolution, and start to work on it, then it close by itself.

Browsers, no problem. Flash also works OK.

Video? NO way. Garbage screen, X reboot.

So, after this testing, trying with and downloading (and by the way, synaptic won't let me downgrade. Fixing sources.list from "maverick" to "lucid" did the trick), and voila. As Hans say, no problem at all. glxgears runs smooth (as smooth this Video card can), and the rest? OK, too.

Checking /var/log/Xorg.0.log , Why is DRI2 being load? I'll think that DRI2 can't be supported on this card.
Just a Guess.

[Hans-Juergen Mauser (hjmauser)]

Thanks for your attention, but as I need the machines for some kind of production work, I cannot revert them to the buggy state currently, as I had to fix and modify a lot: mainline kernel, xservers from lucid, and a self-compiled savage xserver from the lucid sources as I had to do a bugfix in the driver source code, but this is not related to this problem.

Can I still use your collection command to gather something useful, even if I keep the system in working state? This would not be any problem.

[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
GdmLog: Error: command ['gksu', '-D', 'Apport', '--', 'cat', '/var/log/gdm/:0.log'] failed with exit code 1:
GdmLog1: Error: command ['gksu', '-D', 'Apport', '--', 'cat', '/var/log/gdm/:0.log.1'] failed with exit code 1: cat: /var/log/gdm/:0.log.1: No such file or directory
GdmLog2: Error: command ['gksu', '-D', 'Apport', '--', 'cat', '/var/log/gdm/:0.log.2'] failed with exit code 1: cat: /var/log/gdm/:0.log.2: No such file or directory
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007)
Lsusb:
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 046d:c001 Logitech, Inc. N48/M-BB48 [FirstMouse Plus]
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
MachineType: Acer Aspire 1200 series
Package: xorg 1:7.5+6ubuntu3
PackageArchitecture: i386
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   5.0V 16-bit PC Card
   Subdevice 0 (function 0) bound to driver "hostap_cs"
 Socket 1:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-22-generic root=UUID=b9b649e7-fc90-44cb-8b0f-0154cc188831 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=nl_BE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-22.35-generic 2.6.35.4
Tags: maverick maverick
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-22-generic i686
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout dip fax floppy fuse lpadmin plugdev sambashare tape video
dmi.bios.date: 02/21/2001
dmi.bios.vendor: Phoenix
dmi.bios.version: V1.60
dmi.board.name: 8606-686B
dmi.board.vendor: CY23
dmi.board.version: None
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Tag
dmi.chassis.type: 1
dmi.chassis.vendor: No Enclosure
dmi.chassis.version: N/A
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnPhoenix:bvrV1.60:bd02/21/2001:svnAcer:pnAspire1200series:pvr:rvnCY23:rn8606-686B:rvrNone:cvnNoEnclosure:ct1:cvrN/A:
dmi.product.name: Aspire 1200 series
dmi.sys.vendor: Acer
system:
 distro: Ubuntu
 codename: maverick
 architecture: i686
 kernel: 2.6.35-22-generic

[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Jens (jens-desloovere)]

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[Peter Emerik (nothin)]

I have the same issue:
savage IX
ubuntu 10.10

Please let me know if you need any more information.

[pdevries (pdevries)]

I also have this issue. Same as reported in bug report.

Bug did not exist in 10.04, and possibly not on the original release of 10.10.

[Mike L (mikerl)]

Try upgrading to the experimental version of the driver. You can find it at Debian's website. OpenGL is slow, but at least works unlike the current version, and the console isn't jumbled. Go to <http://packages.debian.org/source/experimental/xserver-xorg-video-savage> and download the latest DEB by clicking on your architecture and then the closest mirror for the download.

[Mike L (mikerl)]

Oops. Forgot to mention to click "xserver-xorg-video-savage" first, then your architecture, and then select a mirror.

[Hans-Juergen Mauser (hjmauser)]

Hello Mike,

thanks, this driver works perfectly and I could upgrade all X components back to the latest maverick versions. I will try to load the sources and add the video display patch I created for the older lucid version.

Thanks and best regards!

[Hans-Juergen Mauser (hjmauser)]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-s3/+bug/670790

This should be integrated into the driver. I will check the source code and post a patch in the aforementioned thread.

[encompass (encompass)]

Using the newer driver from debian experimental seems to have worked for me. It is now working just fine. A patch would be nice.

[Dick Gonzalez (dick-gonzalez)]

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xserver-xorg-video-savage/1:2.3.1-2ubuntu2.1/+buildjob/2172657

This was my solution to the problem of crash/restart.

[John Linn (linn1)]

I believe I have the same bug. I have a fresh install of lubuntu
10.10 on an ancient Pentium II PC with an old Diamond Stealth III s540
graphics card. I am seeing symptoms similar to #5 above.

          description: CPU
          product: Pentium II (Deschutes)
          vendor: Intel Corp.
          physical id: 4
          bus info: cpu@0
          version: 6.5.2
          slot: SLOT 1
          size: 450MHz
          capacity: 800MHz
          width: 32 bits
          clock: 100MHz
          capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 mtrr pge mca cmov pse36 mmx fxsr up

                description: VGA compatible controller
                product: Savage 4
                vendor: S3 Inc.
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
                version: 03
                width: 32 bits
                clock: 66MHz
                capabilities: pm agp agp-2.0 vga_controller bus_master cap_list
                configuration: latency=64 maxlatency=255 mingnt=4
                resources: memory:d7000000-d707ffff memory:d8000000-dfffffff memory:d7ff0000-d7ffffff

GLXInfo fails with an error message:

X Error of failed request: BadDrawable (invalid Pixmap or Window parameter)
  Major opcode of failed request: 137 (XFree86-DRI)
  Minor opcode of failed request: 9 ()
  Resource id in failed request: 0x1c00004
  Serial number of failed request: 44
  Current serial number in output stream: 44

No vidio in Chrome browser (but doesn't crash). Glxgears crashes to
the login screen after displaying an empty window frame.

I also believe this is the cause of several programs crashing XWindows
session to crash the login screen in this version of lubuntu:

any XScreenSaver.
any Wine program after displaying a empty window frame.
any attempt to use Power modes other than shutdown or reboot.

Otherwise, lubuntu seems quite reasonable and responsive on this
machine and once some bugs are cleaned up, should work quite nicely.

Let me know if you need more information.

[bugbot (bugbot)]

Hey Hans-Juergen,

Hi, have you had a chance to test if this bug is still present in natty?

If it does (and if you're the original reporter), please boot into natty
and run the command:

  apport-collect <bug-number>

which will update the bug with fresh logs and tag the bug as affecting
natty. (It is best to run this right after reproducing the problem.)

[bugbot (bugbot)]

We're closing this bug since it is has been some time with no response from the original reporter. However, if the issue still exists please feel free to reopen with the requested information. Also, if you could, please test against the latest development version of Ubuntu, since this confirms the bug is one we may be able to pass upstream for help.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

John Linn, I believe your issue has been fixed meanwhile. If not, make sure you have enabled Recommended Updates (maverick-updates) or upgrade to natty.

For everybody, if there are any remaining issues with the savage cards, make sure you file bugs using "ubuntu-bug xserver-xorg-video-savage".