With NVIDIA proprietary drivers, initial login screan appears only on mouse movement

[Michal Bultrowicz]

After installing the proprietary NVIDIA driver (384) I've been faced with a black screen after reboot. It turned out, that when I moved the mouse, the login screen appeared. The screen goes black immediately when I stop moving the mouse. I can normally put the password in on the black screen and go on with my life, but, you know, it doesn't look stable :)

After I get the system up from sleeping (which didn't work earlier but suddenly started working) the log in screen in displayed normally.

My system (Alienware 15 R3) has Intel's i7-7820HK and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile 8GB

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: xorg 1:7.7+19ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-16.19-generic 4.13.4
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-16-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
.proc.driver.nvidia.gpus.0000.01.00.0: Error: [Errno 21] Is a directory: '/proc/driver/nvidia/gpus/0000:01:00.0'
.proc.driver.nvidia.registry: Binary: ""
.proc.driver.nvidia.version:
 NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module 384.90 Tue Sep 19 19:17:35 PDT 2017
 GCC version: gcc version 7.2.0 (Ubuntu 7.2.0-8ubuntu3)
.proc.driver.nvidia.warnings.fbdev:
 Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console
 on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver
 requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console
 drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in
 corruption and stability problems, and is not supported.
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.1
Architecture: amd64
BootLog: /dev/sda2: clean, 200420/61046784 files, 6117516/244157440 blocks
CompositorRunning: None
CurrentDesktop: KDE
Date: Wed Nov 8 23:43:20 2017
DistUpgraded: Fresh install
DistroCodename: artful
DistroVariant: kubuntu
DkmsStatus:
 bbswitch, 0.8, 4.13.0-16-generic, x86_64: installed
 nvidia-384, 384.90, 4.13.0-16-generic, x86_64: installed
ExtraDebuggingInterest: No
GraphicsCard:
 Subsystem: Dell Device [1028:0774]
 NVIDIA Corporation GP104M [GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile] [10de:1be1] (rev a1) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
   Subsystem: Dell GP104M [GeForce GTX 1070 Mobile] [1028:07c0]
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-11-04 (4 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 17.10 "Artful Aardvark" - Release amd64 (20171017.1)
Lsusb:
 Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
 Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0bda:58c2 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
 Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0cf3:e300 Atheros Communications, Inc.
 Bus 001 Device 002: ID 187c:0530 Alienware Corporation
 Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
MachineType: Alienware Alienware 15 R3
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.13.0-16-generic.efi.signed root=UUID=32edfbb9-d0bb-495a-9313-48b5ee124d2b ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: xorg
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 06/09/2017
dmi.bios.vendor: Alienware
dmi.bios.version: 1.1.8
dmi.board.name: Alienware 15 R3
dmi.board.vendor: Alienware
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Alienware
dmi.chassis.version: Not Specified
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAlienware:bvr1.1.8:bd06/09/2017:svnAlienware:pnAlienware15R3:pvr1.1.8:rvnAlienware:rnAlienware15R3:rvrA00:cvnAlienware:ct10:cvrNotSpecified:
dmi.product.family: Alienware
dmi.product.name: Alienware 15 R3
dmi.product.version: 1.1.8
dmi.sys.vendor: Alienware
version.compiz: compiz N/A
version.libdrm2: libdrm2 2.4.83-1
version.libgl1-mesa-dri: libgl1-mesa-dri 17.2.2-0ubuntu1
version.libgl1-mesa-glx: libgl1-mesa-glx 17.2.2-0ubuntu1
version.nvidia-graphics-drivers: nvidia-graphics-drivers-* N/A
version.xserver-xorg-core: xserver-xorg-core 2:1.19.5-0ubuntu2
version.xserver-xorg-input-evdev: xserver-xorg-input-evdev N/A
version.xserver-xorg-video-ati: xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:7.10.0-1
version.xserver-xorg-video-intel: xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.99.917+git20170309-0ubuntu1
version.xserver-xorg-video-nouveau: xserver-xorg-video-nouveau 1:1.0.15-2

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.
Ubuntu 17.10 (artful) reached end-of-life on July 19, 2018.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in and change the bug status to Confirmed.

[Michal Bultrowicz (michalbultrowicz)]

Oh, damn, forgot that I put this up here. It was the same after switching to 18.04, but then I fixed it. Turns out that problems loading the graphics driver during boot are so common, that there's a grub option that disables it:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset"

This needs to be set and Grub rebuilt. That should give you a visible command-line prompt for the drive password. After inputting that, the boot of the OS proceeds normally.

Since this is a good workaround (built into Grub, even), I'll close the ticket.

It would be great if this was more discoverable, though.

[Michal Bultrowicz (michalbultrowicz)]

Oh, it's already closed. OK, then :)