BIOS logo reappears mid-boot after the purple screen

[Daniel van Vugt]

BIOS logo (the ACPI BGRT graphic) reappears mid-boot after the purple screen.

This seems to be happening reliably on multiple focal machines:

0. Turn on or reboot the machine.
1. See the BIOS logo.
2. See a blank purple screen (grub)
3. See the BIOS logo again (this bug)
4. See the purple screen with Ubuntu logo (plymouth)
5. See the login screen

I believe this is related to ACPI BGRT changes in the kernel. And I guess it wouldn't even need fixing if we just eliminated the blank purple grub screen (step 2)...

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: linux-image-5.4.0-12-generic 5.4.0-12.15
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-12.15-generic 5.4.8
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-12-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu16
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Jan 31 11:31:44 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-01-30 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Alpha amd64 (20200124)
SourcePackage: linux-signed-5.4
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
---
ProblemType: Bug
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu16
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: dan 1316 F.... pulseaudio
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-01-30 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Alpha amd64 (20200124)
MachineType: LENOVO 20KFCTO1WW
Package: linux-signed-5.4
ProcFB: 0 i915drmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.4.0-12-generic root=UUID=50f3b272-d351-4a2a-9661-d39e9fcf2195 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-12.15-generic 5.4.8
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-5.4.0-12-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-5.4.0-12-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.185
Tags: focal
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-12-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin lxd plugdev sambashare sudo
_MarkForUpload: True
dmi.bios.date: 01/10/2020
dmi.bios.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.bios.version: N20ET51W (1.36 )
dmi.board.asset.tag: Not Available
dmi.board.name: 20KFCTO1WW
dmi.board.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.board.version: Not Defined
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: LENOVO
dmi.chassis.version: None
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnLENOVO:bvrN20ET51W(1.36):bd01/10/2020:svnLENOVO:pn20KFCTO1WW:pvrThinkPadX280:rvnLENOVO:rn20KFCTO1WW:rvrNotDefined:cvnLENOVO:ct10:cvrNone:
dmi.product.family: ThinkPad X280
dmi.product.name: 20KFCTO1WW
dmi.product.sku: LENOVO_MT_20KF_BU_Think_FM_ThinkPad X280
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad X280
dmi.sys.vendor: LENOVO

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

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[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I think I would prefer to see just the purple grub screen gone. So that would be a grub change and no kernel changes?...

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

I have seen this also (most likely with flavors), but ignored it sorry (probably over ~two weeks??? but very subjective)

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Yeah it might be related to this kernel change from a couple of weeks ago:

  [Config] FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE_DEFERRED_TAKEOVER=y (bug 1836858)

Again, I think I would prefer to keep it. Just stop grub from bringing up the purple screen...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Esokrates (esokrarkose)]

@vanvugt Coming from the other bug report I'm trying to describe my problem:

First of all I don't see purple as I have disabled the purple grub by running
chmod -x /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme

Secondly: In Ubuntu 19.10 there is no flicker happening for me, while in Ubuntu 20.04 there is a flicker. Why is that? There must be something in 19.10 that is not part of 20.04.

In Ubuntu 20.04 the bios logo appears after grub, then it flickers just before the spinner shortly (during the flicker a white cursor appears on the upper left corner of the screen), you can see this here:
https://youtu.be/O_Efd9szFFI
during second 6 and second 7 (in reality it's much better noticeable than on the video).

Compare this with the boot process of Ubuntu 19.10 where there is not a single flicker:
https://youtu.be/KTOz7aOY5iE

[Esokrates (esokrarkose)]

Regarding the video showing the flicker: I missed to film the upper part of the screen, so you don't get to see the cursor flashing up in the upper left corner.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I'm not completely sure I was right to direct you to this bug. And not completely sure I was wrong.

Best to just wait till this bug is fixed and then if you still experience problems you know you should use a different bug.

[Dimitri John Ledkov (xnox)]

This is an improvement!

Previously, during that time period the whole display (at least on laptops) would be powered off and people saw a temporary backlight flicker.

With this in place we might be able to to implement a flickerfree boot!

I will double check what we need to change in the theme to ensure our boot now has less flicker.

Please keep the kernel as is, and we will tweak the themes to behave better.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

There will always be cases where grub needs to display a menu, in which case it's going to change the background. Having the kernel switch back from the purple screen to the bios logo after this is going to look odd. I'm dubious that this design was thought all the way through.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@Steve, in that regard it's not different from booting windows. The design is optimized for the single OS scenario but we could probably do something nicer in case where the grub menu has to be decided indeed (but that's not on the roadmap for this cycle)

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Lubuntu 18.04.4 QA-test install

post-install & booting, I get grub-type brief text flash (also reminded me of text unlock for encryption on [lubuntu] focal) then VAIO logo again, black screen, VAIO then very brief plymouth then greeter

ie. I'm expressing an opinion this is occurring in BIONIC too

Note: this all occurs really quick; it's mostly 'flashes' & not readable.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/1861470

[Esokrates (esokrarkose)]

I tried to rootcause my flicker over the last few days, it was definitely not due to the kernel and neither due to plymouth (tried by installing the respective packages from focal in eon and vice versa in focal). One thing I wanted to try next was initramfs but did not have the time to test.

Today I fully upgraded focal and the flicker is gone now :-).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Fixed, somewhere.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Booting a Lubuntu QA-test installed system (2020-04-11 ISO installed today) and after plymouth, I briefly see the VAIO logo before the sddm greeter occurs.

Order I see is (3 boots to confirm)
- encryption-key-screen
- vaio
- plymouth (lubuntu dots)
- vaio
- sddm/greeter

the vaio screen appears also on shutdown... I'm ignoring this, but if you need details, or other, please let me know.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Since this bug is closed for regular Ubuntu already, please open a new bug for Lubuntu by running:

  ubuntu-bug plymouth