switching from runlevel 5 to runlevel 1 locks up system

[Ernst Kloppenburg]

Binary package hint: plymouth

(the system was freshly installed as 10.4-beta1 and upgraded today)

steps to reproduce:
- boot the system normally
- either: log in graphically and open a console window
- or: switch to vt1 and log into the console
- issue the command: telinit 1

Processes will be stopped and so on, but the procedure ends in a state where
- the ubuntu splash screen is shown
- no reaction to pressing ctrl-alt-f1
- system has to be restarted with ctrl-alt-del

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: plymouth 0.8.1-4ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-19.28-generic 2.6.32.10+drm33.1
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-19-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Apr 10 19:54:56 2010
DefaultPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta i386 (20100318)
MachineType: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. EP35-DS3
ProcCmdLine: root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=de_DE.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 radeondrmfb
SourcePackage: plymouth
TextPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-text/ubuntu-text.plymouth
dmi.bios.date: 06/19/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
dmi.bios.version: F4
dmi.board.name: EP35-DS3
dmi.board.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.board.version: x.x
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAwardSoftwareInternational,Inc.:bvrF4:bd06/19/2009:svnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:pnEP35-DS3:pvr:rvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:rnEP35-DS3:rvrx.x:cvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: EP35-DS3
dmi.sys.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Yes, I can confirm this looking at the upstart jobs.

plymouth starts on runlevel [016], and calls plymouth show-splash.

plymouth-stop.conf is responsible for stopping plymouth again, but the start condition "stopped rc RUNLEVEL=[2345]" doesn't match.

I think runlevel 1 just needs to be added to the plymouth-stop.conf start condition.

[Scott James Remnant (Canonical) (canonical-scott)]

Sounds quite plausible

Though this will also combine with the bug where "killprocs" kills all Upstart jobs, so plymouth gets SIGTERM during the runlevel switch - and that seems to result in plymouth exiting without restoring the console

[Bruno Nova (brunonova)]

I also discovered this issue (or something similar) in Ubuntu 14.04.
This is an old bug, but I will comment here instead of reporting a new bug.

When I run "sudo shutdown now" or "sudo telinit 1" to go to single-user mode, the Plymouth splashscreen appears briefly, but then a black screen appears with no text (there should be a root console there).
The root console is there however, but invisible, because typing "telinit 2" blindly and then pressing <Enter> returns the system to the normal mode.

If I disable the splashscreen (by removing the "splash" kernel parameter from the GRUB menu), switching to single-user mode works correctly. So, this is definitely a bug in Plymouth!
I can't reproduce this bug is an VirtualBox VM, however (maybe Plymouth doesn't work correctly there).
I must say that I'm using a laptop with Optimus graphics (using bumblebee). Don't know if that could have anything to do with this bug.

Booting into recovery mode works fine.

Another problem: switching to single-user mode kills all the consoles (tty1-tty6), but returning to normal mode doesn't restart them (lightdm is restarted correctly). I think this could be a very big problem on a server.