[nouveaufb] Plymouth refuses to show on boot, only at shutdown (mountall error messages)

[Christopher Kyle Horton]

On my system, Plymouth shows properly on shutdown, but at boot I get a blank screen and an error from my monitor saying "No Signal", followed usually by some terminal text mentioning something like "mountall: Plymouth command failed".

Then the Unity greeter comes up and everything after that runs just fine. It'd still be nice to see the boot splash, though.

I've been getting this problem since I installed the 9/9/2011 daily build of Oneiric, but didn't get around to reporting it until today for some reason. Not sure if it's related to the fact that I cannot get grub to display either, despite this being a dual-boot between Oneiric and Natty, but I'll file that separately.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: plymouth 0.8.2-2ubuntu25
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-11.18-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-11-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Sep 15 09:06:32 2011
DefaultPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Beta amd64 (20110909)
MachineType: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. M61PME-S2P
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-11-generic root=UUID=382b2fb7-eeaf-4a92-8739-abcba4226958 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
ProcFB: 0 nouveaufb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-11-generic root=UUID=382b2fb7-eeaf-4a92-8739-abcba4226958 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=7
SourcePackage: plymouth
TextPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-text/ubuntu-text.plymouth
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-09-13 (2 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 11/03/2009
dmi.bios.vendor: Award Software International, Inc.
dmi.bios.version: F6
dmi.board.name: M61PME-S2P
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.:bvrF6:bd11/03/2009:svnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:pnM61PME-S2P:pvr:rvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:rnM61PME-S2P:rvrx.x:cvnGigabyteTechnologyCo.,Ltd.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.name: M61PME-S2P
dmi.sys.vendor: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

The bug that I said I would file separately for my grub not displaying is bug #850908, in case it's relevant in any way.

[Broco (broco2002)]

No, it's not because I have the same problem despite I use burg as boot manager (which works well).
Even with a working Grub 2 before it didn't show up.
Confirmed.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

I'm still getting this problem on my desktop in Oneiric final. I have just upgraded my Toshiba Satellite laptop yesterday to Oneiric and it still doesn't have this problem, just my desktop does.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

WarriorIng64,

From the context of your AskUbuntu thread, I understand that the root issue here is a mismatch between your video card's preferred VBE mode (as returned by the 'vbeinfo' command in grub2) and the modes supported by your external monitor. If you are seeing the splash at shutdown but only see the "No signal" error during startup, followed briefly by the mountall message and then X, there are a couple of different possibilities.

 - the nouveaufb kernel driver may be using the preconfigured resolution passed to it by grub. If so, this is arguably a bug in the kernel driver; it should instead be probing with EDID to find a resolution supported by the external monitor.
 - the kernel driver may be fine, but plymouth is starting so late that it doesn't matter because you never see it on startup (bug #540801).

Please try the following and report back the results:
 - run 'echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/framebuffer && sudo update-initramfs -u', then reboot. If you then see the plymouth splash on startup, this confirms that you're seeing bug #540801.
 - boot with plymouth:debug=file:/var/log/plymouth-debug.log added to your kernel commandline and attach the resulting log file to this bug.
 - check the configuration used in X with 'xrandr', and configure grub to use the same mode by setting GRUB_GFXMODE in /etc/default/grub and running update-grub.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

Steve, I've just tried the first option to no effect. Attached is a copy of my terminal output from running that command. I'll get to trying the other two shortly.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Ok. That's the expected output from running the command, fwiw.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

Here's my output from the second suggestion.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

Steve, attached is my output from running xrandr. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "[configuring] grub to use the same mode"; could you tell me from this output exactly what I should set GRUB_GFXMODE to (i.e., which numbers to use)? Thanks.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 11:50:54PM -0000, WarriorIng64 wrote:
> Steve, attached is my output from running xrandr. I'm not entirely sure
> what you mean by "[configuring] grub to use the same mode"; could you
> tell me from this output exactly what I should set GRUB_GFXMODE to
> (i.e., which numbers to use)? Thanks.

The starred configuration is the active one. So 1680x1050 should be the
target GRUB_GFXMODE (hopefully this is supported by the card in VBE).

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
<email address hidden> <email address hidden>

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

Just tried the third and last suggestion. Still nothing.

Looking back at what was posted on my AskUbuntu question, I'm going to try setting GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 and see if I can at least get grub to display. If that works, then from there I'll take a look at vbeinfo.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

From the plymouth debug log:

[./plugin.c] initialize_head:initializing 2048x1536 head

Those sure don't look like the dimensions we want. So this may be a bug with the resolution being handed off from grub, or it may be a bug in the nouveau framebuffer driver itself.

Another option you can try is to boot with the option 'plymouth:force-drm', which will cause plymouth to use the drm backend instead of the framebuffer backend. Note that this is not safe when running the system with dual monitors.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

Okay, I've altered the following lines in my /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash plymouth:debug=file:/var/log/plymouth-debug.log plymouth:force-drm"

GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

(I only use one monitor in my setup, btw, so I figured that option would be safe to add.)

And lo and behold, it works! This is the first time I've seen my grub menu and Plymouth during boot in quite a long time, albeit in a low resolution. It's even centered onscreen, too! I guess this means I can finally boot my Natty partition again (although Oneiric's quite nice and I plan on sticking with that).

Please let me know if there's anything else you want me to do yet to help get this bug actually fixed.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 05:37:29AM -0000, WarriorIng64 wrote:
> Okay, I've altered the following lines in my /etc/default/grub:

> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash plymouth:debug=file:/var/log
> /plymouth-debug.log plymouth:force-drm"

> GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

> (I only use one monitor in my setup, btw, so I figured that option would
> be safe to add.)

> And lo and behold, it works! This is the first time I've seen my grub
> menu and Plymouth during boot in quite a long time, albeit in a low
> resolution. It's even centered onscreen, too! I guess this means I can
> finally boot my Natty partition again (although Oneiric's quite nice and
> I plan on sticking with that).

Great! :) Glad to see we're making progress.

> Please let me know if there's anything else you want me to do yet to
> help get this bug actually fixed.

Is plymouth also low resolution, or just grub? The goal is to have plymouth
using best native resolution, *not* 640x480, though the nouveau driver may
just be accepting whatever resolution grub sets up for it.

Does plymouth show up when using *just* plymouth:force-drm, without also
setting GRUB_GFXMODE?

Can you attach the plymouth debug log resulting from booting with
plymouth:force-drm?

Now that you're able to see grub, could you hit 'c' to get a console, grab
out the list of available modes with the 'vbeinfo' command, and post the
list here (screenshot with a camera may be easiest)? Then you can try
stepping through the resolutions one by one with GRUB_GFXMODE to see which
gives the best results on your monitor.

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
<email address hidden> <email address hidden>

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

I was about to say that using

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash plymouth:debug=file:/var/log/plymouth-debug.log "

GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

works too, without the plymouth:force-drm bit on the end.

I just saw your last comment and I will be trying that out next. Unfortunately, I no longer have the cruddy Nintendo DSi camera I used to get that picture of my monitor error the first time around, and neither I nor my roommate have any cameras handy. In fact, I actually asked a question on AskUbuntu just a while earlier on how to save the vbeinfo output (http://askubuntu.com/questions/67236/is-there-a-way-to-save-the-output-of-vbeinfo). I'll see what I can do in the meantime; if the output's not too long I may just end up writing it down.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

Okay, using plymouth:force-drm without setting GRUB_GFXMODE returns to the original problem, with neither grub nor Plymouth showing. Attached is the output from that.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 06:26:22AM -0000, WarriorIng64 wrote:
> Okay, using plymouth:force-drm without setting GRUB_GFXMODE returns to
> the original problem, with neither grub nor Plymouth showing. Attached
> is the output from that.

> ** Attachment added: "plymouth-debug.log"
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plymouth/+bug/850895/+attachment/2549562/+files/plymouth-debug.log

Hmm, this log shows:

[./plugin.c] create_backend:creating renderer backend for device /dev/dri/card0
[./plugin.c] load_driver:Attempting to load driver '(null)'
[./plugin.c] load_driver:drmOpen failed
[ply-renderer.c] ply_renderer_open:could not open rendering device for plugin /lib/plymouth/renderers/drm.so

So it seems that even when using plymouth:force-drm, plymouth is failing to
set up the drm backend for your card.

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
<email address hidden> <email address hidden>

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

Okay, never mind on the camera bit. I just realized that I do have a camera: my laptop webcam.

I was able to get this picture of vbeinfo on my desktop using Cheese, after resetting grub to use GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 again. I think some of the output at the top is cut off, and you can see black artifacts along the edges of the screen. But at least I do have something to start with

I'll try some of these resolutions and see if I can't get anything better.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

On Sun, Oct 16, 2011 at 06:46:22AM -0000, WarriorIng64 wrote:
> I was able to get this picture of vbeinfo on my desktop using Cheese,
> after resetting grub to use GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480 again. I think some of
> the output at the top is cut off, and you can see black artifacts along
> the edges of the screen. But at least I do have something to start with

> I'll try some of these resolutions and see if I can't get anything
> better.

Interesting; sure enough, there's the 2048x1536 resolution that shows up in
the plymouth log, and 1680x1050 does not appear in the vbeinfo list.

So it looks like you're going to end up with a stretched GRUB menu no matter
what, because there are no widescreen 16:10 modes in the list.

That leaves two questions:

 - why does the plymouth drm driver not work on your card?
 - why does the nouveau framebuffer pick up the resolution passed by GRUB,
without cross-checking it against EDID?

These are probably both bugs that warrant further investigation.

--
Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer http://www.debian.org/
<email address hidden> <email address hidden>

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

I just tried the 1280x1024 resolution. It looks better resolution-wise, but it's no longer centered onscreen, and instead is slightly off to the left, leaving a black bar at the right edge.

Running vbeinfo in that resolution left no artifacts, but was still off-center. It did produce the full output legibly, but I couldn't really get a good enough picture with my laptop that would also be readable. Instead, I typed up the beginning that was chopped off earlier into the attached .txt, containing everything up to entry 0x106 (the first readable entry in the earlier provided picture). So the vbeinfo output is now complete.

I'll stop for now (it's going on 4am here and I need sleep). Let me know if there's anything else you want me to try.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Right, the lack of centering is not unsurprising. That may be something you can adjust in your monitor's settings, fwiw.

When you have a chance, please show the output of this command:

readlink -f /sys/dev/char/$((0x$(stat -c %t /dev/dri/card0))):$((0x$(stat -c %T /dev/dri/card0)))/device/driver

also this one:

ls -l /sys/dev/char/$((0x$(stat -c %t /dev/dri/card0))):$((0x$(stat -c %T /dev/dri/card0)))/device/

Something is different with the sysfs layout for your card than plymouth is expecting, which is causing it to fail to use the drm driver.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

I ran both commands and pasted the terminal output into this attachment.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

ok, interesting. I don't know why this check is failing for you at boot, then. Will have to dig further.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

I have just followed a suggestion here on my question about saving the output of vbeinfo by trying hwinfo: http://askubuntu.com/q/83085/18612 I'm not sure if the output gives any additional information that could be useful; it looks similar to but is not the same as what vbeinfo returns.

On an unrelated note, I am currently considering overwriting my 11.04 partition with a daily build of 12.04 for testing purposes (my 11.10 partition will remain untouched). I may or may not overwrite my current GRUB setup then with whatever 12.04 provides, which could allow me to check what the status of the problem is there. Is this a good idea?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

The hwinfo output also shows that the native panel resolution is not known to the BIOS.

To the best of my knowledge there have been no relevant changes to grub in precise; I don't expect the behavior to change whether or not you overwrite the bootloader.

[Christopher Kyle Horton (christhehorton)]

Just confirming that this bug is still present in Precise; I have overwritten my 11.04 partition and installed 12.04 over that, along with its own GRUB. The above workarounds still work, as well.

[Jeffrey Tees (jeff-tees)]

I have this bug at boot, mangled screen with partial purple colouring, message 'Input not Supported' from the monitor bouncing around the screen. When boot finishes, all is well. I think it's okay on shutdown, I only shutdown occassionally and don't hang around to watch. Ubuntu 12.04 (fresh install on bespoke desktop built on Gigabyte M68M-S2P Motherboard (Nvidia nForce 680s intergrated graphics).

[pelm (pelle-ekh)]

I think i have something like this bug on my system. When i was running the Nouveau driver (now i have the Nvidia prorietary driver installed) the system was booting correct but i don't saw the plymouth splash screen. It was showing a short time (as a purple background, no ubuntu text) popping at the beginning of system boot, but then immediately turned the screen off (no error messages at all) and the boot continued with the screen turned off. The computer booted ok though and the screen turned on again opening lightdm, but no plymouth splash before. At shutdown the splash is showing ok. With Nividia prorietary driver all is as it should be. Ok, both boot and shutdown. System is 12.04 and graphic card GeForce 7600 GS. With commandline option 'plymouth:force-drm' in /etc/default/grub file the splash screen comes up short after the initial purple popup. This is a option but not a good one.

[Jani Uusitalo (uusijani)]

FWIW, based on the above comments and my experience I'd lay at least some of the blame on this on nouveau: I have two setups affected by the Plymouth no-show, both with Nvidia graphics:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation G73 [GeForce 7300 GT] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
and
00:0d.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation C61 [GeForce 7025 / nForce 630a] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

At the same time all the other systems I have access to that run Precise on non-Nvidia graphics (some half dozen computers, old and new) don't manifest it, i.e. they display Plymouth's boot logo screen just fine on every boot without any workarounds. (The Nvidias need either FRAMEBUFFER=y or plymouth:force-drm.)

Also, on the G73, Grub menu shows at a low resolution without GRUB_GFXMODE specified, but on the C61 it's "Out of range". It shows on both if I specify 1280x1024 (the maximum supported by the connected LCDs) as GRUB_GFXMODE. This too is Nvidia-specific, though I suppose the Grub menu is outside nouveau's jurisdiction.

[Vasilis Toumpakaris (toumbo)]

I'm affected too. Fortunalely in opensuse 12.2 I don't have this problem.

[Giorgio (gioloi72)]

Just to say that the bug is still present in 12.10 Quantal

[Tuxedo Joe (tuxedojoe)]

This bug seems to be dependant on the user to have a encrypted home folder or not. If not encrypted installing themes works, if encrypted only shutdown works. So it seems to me like ecryptfs is somehow blocking initramfs when reading the theme.