Karmic + NVIDIA cause screen flickering, X crashes and video playback problems

[Tal Amir]

Hello.
Yesterday I upgraded from Ubuntu Jaunty to Karmic, and now I'm experiencing the following problem:

After logging in to the system, the screen randomly flickers, and at a certain point, one of the two things happen:

1. The X screen gets scrambled and freezes. Only the mouse can sometimes move. Sometimes I can escape this situation by pressing CTRL-ALT-1, and then returning to the regular display with CTRL-ALT-7, which causes a small temporary improvement. In other times, even pressing CTRL-ALT-1 cannot get me out of this, and the computer is completely stuck.

2. X crashes, and the GDM login screen appears.

The time it takes for the session to hang varies. It can be anything between 1 minute to 30 minutes and on rare times even longer. The time duration does NOT depend on whether I'm using Compiz or not, and whether sound is being played or not. However, I think that actions which cause the window manager to work harder (e.g. opening / moving windows) can make the problem appear sooner.

The second problem is that video playback fails - the video is first played correctly and after a few seconds sound stops and the playback gradually slows down until it completely stops. It happens to me in SMplayer. I'm not sure whether I tried it with other players as well. This happens in many video formats.

These two problems share the following characteristics:
- They started right after upgrading from Jaunty to Karmic.
- They happen both when I use the NVIDIA driver from the repository (185) or the driver I downloaded from the NVIDIA site (190).
- They don't happen when I use the "nv" video driver, or when I start Ubuntu in "reduced graphics" mode (by uninstalling the NVIDIA driver).

I am using the following software and hardware:
HP Pavilion dv5 with Intel Core 2 Duo
NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT, propietry driver v190.53 / v185.something
Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Other links that discuss what seems to be the same problem:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1329698
(Karmic: Screen scramble and freezes)

http://ohioloco.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1309015
(Random freezing in 9.10 Karmic)

http://www.econowics.com/linux/326/video-playback-freeze-every-few-seconds-minutes-on-ubuntu/
(Video Playback Freeze Every Few Seconds / Minutes on Ubuntu)

Thanks, Tal

[Tal Amir (smirnof-t2)]

I forgot to add that I am using kernel 2.6.31-19-generic.

p.s.
The 2nd link I gave in the previous post is the most informative one. It's a discussion that has been going on for 4 months and spans over 16 pages with information about people's attempts to solve this bug - including different kernel versions, NVIDIA driver versions, and other changes to the system, which solved the problem for some of the people, but not for all. Generally they still could not find one magic solution that works for everyone.

The 3rd link seems less related to this bug.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Tal,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 527149

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

    [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Tal Amir (smirnof-t2)]

Hi Jeremy.

Thanks for your email.

I definitely intend to test this with new versions of Ubuntu, and I would
love to assist you guys to solve this issue. I was waiting for the first
official release of Lucid that's supposed to come out tomorrow (the 29th). I
am now using the nv alternative video driver, and I'm pretty sure once I
switch back to NVidia the bug will come back.

Before upgrading to Lucid, would it be helpful it I run 'apport-collect -p
linux 527149' with my current version of Karmic and post the results?

Also, about upstream testing - should I do it before or after having
upgraded to Lucid? And once I upgrade to Lucid, won't I already have the
latest kernel version? If not - then what's the right order to do things?

Thanks again, Tal

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 12:04 AM, Jeremy Foshee <<email address hidden>
> wrote:

> Hi Tal,
>
> This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it
> recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the
> latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from
> http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .
>
> If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal
> (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and
> attach updated debug information to this report.
>
> apport-collect -p linux 527149
>
> Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be
> great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue.
> Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've
> tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag.
> This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag
> located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the
> 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you
> inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]
>
>
> ** Tags added: needs-kernel-logs
>
> ** Tags added: needs-upstream-testing
>
> ** Tags added: kj-triage
>
> ** Changed in: linux (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
> --
> Karmic + NVIDIA cause screen flickering, X crashes and video playback
> problems
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/527149
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu: Incomplete
> Status in “nvidia-graphics-drivers-180” package in Ubuntu: New
> Status in “xorg” package in Ubuntu: Invalid
>
> Bug description:
> Hello.
> Yesterday I upgraded from Ubuntu Jaunty to Karmic, and now I'm experiencing
> the following problem:
>
> After logging in to the system, the screen randomly flickers, and at a
> certain point, one of the two things happen:
>
> 1. The X screen gets scrambled and freezes. Only the mouse can sometimes
> move. Sometimes I can escape this situation by pressing CTRL-ALT-1, and then
> returning to the regular display with CTRL-ALT-7, which causes a small
> temporary improvement. In other times, even pressing CTRL-ALT-1 cannot get
> me out of this, and the compute...

[themusicalduck (themusicalduck)]

I was about to report a bug, but it looks like this is very similar to the issue I'm having.

My screen will flicker randomly. Usually it's not very noticeable, but sometimes it is so bad that the computer is nearly unusable. The screen just flickers on and off. This also sometimes causes freezes. Usually only short hang ups, but occasionally it will freeze completely.

I get the random crashes back to the login screen as well.

The only difference is that I don't have the same problems with video playback. Although I do have this problem - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xvidcore/+bug/626560

I've had this problem since Lucid. I'm running Maverick now and it doesn't seem to have gotten any better.

I'll attach an lspci output, but if you need any extra attachments then let me know.

[Tal Amir (smirnof-t2)]

Hi.
Thanks for your post.

I'm now experiencing that bug on a fresh installation of Lucid with the
[current version] of nvidia's driver.
About the video playback problem, I don't think it has anything to do with
the screen flickering and freezing, although I still didn't check it on the
new installation.

I really hope it will get fixed. If not, I might try to reinstall Jaunty and
see if it fixes the problem.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.