Hardy live CD loops between login and desktop on ATI Xpress cards - compiz crashes Xorg

[Andreas Gustafsson]

I downloaded the Hardy Heron alpha 4 CD and tried booting it,
choosing the default "Start or install Ubuntu" option.

The CD boots fine up to the login screen, which says "User ubuntu will
login in 10 seconds" and does the 10-second countdown. Then the
desktop background appears, the menubars at the top and bottom
of the screen briefly appear (but with a smaller font than usual), and
then I'm thrown back to the login screen and the 10-second
countdown starts anew. This repeats ad infinitum.

This is the same hardware configuration as in #138084: an MSI
RS482M4 motherboard with the VGA output of the on-board graphics
connected to an iiyama ProLite E380s 1024x768 LCD display.

The machine boots 7.04 without problem.

Workaround: Uninstall compiz-core which won't work on these cards anyway.

[Murat Gunes (mgunes)]

Thanks for your report. Did you check the CD for integrity (with the boot option)?

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Did you check the CD for integrity (with the boot option)?

I have now. It said "no errors found".

Also, if I choose the "Start Ubuntu in safe graphics mode" option,
the looping behavior does not occur; in that case I get a working
desktop (aside from the issue reported in bug #138087).

[Zartan (mattik-deactivatedaccount)]

I have same problem. I cannot change to command line, too.But I can login by safe mode. My Graphic card is integrated ATI XPress 1150 and this is desktop computer. All was right in my laptop when I started live cd. Anyway I will try to install Ubuntu to this.

[Jonathan Thurn (jthurn)]

I would like to confirm this behavior as well with hardy alpha 6. LiveCD reaches gdm login window, auto logs into "ubuntu" account, displays desktop image, and promptly fails to load gnome or metacity or even kills the xserver, popping the user back to the gdm login window, repeating ad infinitum. I have no idea how to determine which package is causing the problem with a liveCD. And yes, I checked the md5sum after downloading the image and checked the CD integrity. No errors were found. I have yet to try save graphics mode.

hardy alpha 6 desktop amd64
integrated laptop video ATI Radeon Xpress 200M
I too use gutsy64 without difficulty.

[Jonathan Thurn (jthurn)]

Is it safe to say this has been fixed, whatever the cause? I have yet to see the LiveCD run in circles like this since the betas came out.

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Is it safe to say this has been fixed, whatever the cause?

No, it has not been fixed. I just downloaded ubuntu-8.04-desktop-i386.iso
and booted it as a live CD, and it's still looping.

If anything, the problem has gotten worse: with alpha 4, the desktop background
and menu bars appeared briefly before I got thrown back to the login countdown,
but now they don't: I just get the countdown, a few seconds of black screen,
countdown, black screen, countdown, etc.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Could this be a compiz problem, causing the X server to crash? Your card should have been blacklisted for compiz though. Can you please try to get some log files, like Xorg.0.log? One way would be to boot with "safe graphics mode", then switch to a console:
 sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop # to stop gdm from restarting
 sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf # and change to "ati" driver
 startx # to try starting Xorg, which might die
 cp /var/log/Xorg.0.log ~/Desktop/ati.log
 sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf # and change back to "vesa" driver
 sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start # login in again and send the log to us

(I vaguely remember an issue with the gdm init script failing to stop gdm on the live CD. Maybe you have to just kill it.)

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Could this be a compiz problem, causing the X server to crash?

Could well be.

> Can you please try to get some log files, like Xorg.0.log?

I tried, but without much luck. "sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop" didn't stop gdm,
as you suspected. I also tried killing the gdm process (or processes, as
ps showed a parent and child gdm process), as follows:

On my first try, I just killed the parent gdm; this caused the X server to die
immediately, leaving me in text mode but with no shell prompt. I switched
to a different virtual console with alt-ctrl-f1; this one had a shell, and I typed
"startx" at the shell prompt. This started an X server with the default stipple
background and "X" cursor, but no Gnome desktop. Should I have run
startx as root?

On my second try, I killed both gdm processes by listing both on the "kill"
command line. This caused the machine to lock up (the desktop remained
visible, but did not respond to keyboard or mouse commands), and I had to
reboot.

Anything else I could try?

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

You can try to login choosing a "Failsafe Terminal" session in the login window (before it counts down). You will have to enter "ubuntu" as user name and empty password in this case IIRC. This will give you a shell without gnome and compiz and you can now uninstall compiz for instance. And copy the old log from Xorg.0.log.old corresponding to the previous, broken session.

You can also edit xorg.conf here and press ctrl-alt-backspace to restart X.

The problem can be that glxinfo is crashing. Please try that also in the failsafe session.

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> You can try to login choosing a "Failsafe Terminal" session in the login window

That worked. I booted the live CD with the default settings (no "safe graphics mode"),
let it run through the countdown - black screen - countdown loop a couple of times,
and then aborted the countdown by choosing "Failsafe Terminal".

I will attach copies of /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old and /var/log/gdm/:0.log.1 saved
from the failsafe terminal session. The latter ends with an assertion failure from the
X server; I assume that is what's causing the crash:

  X: r300_emit.c:403: r300EmitArrays: Assertion `((inputs_bitset)[((_TNL_ATTRIB_COLOR0) / (sizeof (GLuint) * 8))] & (1 << ((_TNL_ATTRIB_COLOR0) % (sizeof (GLuint) * 8))))' failed.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Great. Can you try glxinfo as well?

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

The output from glxinfo is attached. Additionally, it printed the following
message on standard error:

  Warning, xpress200 detected.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Does the gnome session crash if you have uninstalled compiz-core ?

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Does the gnome session crash if you have uninstalled compiz-core ?

No, it does not crash.

[Phoenix --rise-from-ashes (meindian523)]

I have a Intel D101GGC board,desktop system,integrated ATi Radeon XPress 200(M?) series card and I didn't face any problems.Ubuntu 8.04 boots without any problems,I've installed and up and running without any problems.

[Brian Mallett (brianma)]

I have the same problem on a brand new HP DX 2250 machine running Ubuntu 8.04

I commented out the starting of X and I can login via a tty but when I startx it hangs.

Using the Live CD - what is funny though, if this helps. when it runs from the live CD it show the X based login prompt OK and then when it logs it it must try to change the video mode and thats when it crashes, then loops back to the login prompt.

is there any whay of keeping it in that mode, or stopping it from re-initailising.

Also what you try to start X manually you get the grey screen in the correct mode, with the X then an arrow cursor, then when it goes to the vertical bar cursor it then crashes.

[symon1980 (symon1980)]

ARGHHHHHHH. Has ANYBODY managed to work around this problem?????
This is GAY!
nothing anybody has suggested has worked for me...
C'mon Canoncial!!! Fix this!
Nothing has been done at all yet and its been AAGEESSSSSS...........
not even a confirmation that the bug exists or is being looked at. arghh
So Much for Hardy
Gutsy works. but.. meh.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

symon: Thank you for your comment. To maintain a respectful atmosphere, please follow the code of conduct - [WWW] http://www.ubuntu.com/community/conduct/ . Bug reports are handled by humans, the majority of whom are volunteers, so please bear this in mind.

[BigRedBettaFish (bigredbetta)]

Does anyone know of a work around for this issue using the Live CD? The issue description says:

Workaround: Uninstall compiz-core which won't work on these cards anyway.

Anyone have some insight on how to get this to work?

[Brian Mallett (brianma)]

yes

uninstall compiz

flip the login into safe mode then apt-get remove compiz

or you can use control-alt f1 to get to a terminal session then remove it

brian

-----Original Message-----
From: <email address hidden> [mailto:<email address hidden>]On Behalf Of
BigRedBettaFish
Sent: 13 August 2008 13:35
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Bug 188660] Re: live CD loops between login and desktop on
ATIXpress cards - compiz crashes Xorg

Does anyone know of a work around for this issue using the Live CD? The
issue description says:

Workaround: Uninstall compiz-core which won't work on these cards
anyway.

Anyone have some insight on how to get this to work?

--
live CD loops between login and desktop on ATI Xpress cards - compiz crashes Xorg
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/188660
You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
of the bug.

Status in “xorg” source package in Ubuntu: Triaged

Bug description:
I downloaded the Hardy Heron alpha 4 CD and tried booting it,
choosing the default "Start or install Ubuntu" option.

The CD boots fine up to the login screen, which says "User ubuntu will
login in 10 seconds" and does the 10-second countdown. Then the
desktop background appears, the menubars at the top and bottom
of the screen briefly appear (but with a smaller font than usual), and
then I'm thrown back to the login screen and the 10-second
countdown starts anew. This repeats ad infinitum.

This is the same hardware configuration as in #138084: an MSI
RS482M4 motherboard with the VGA output of the on-board graphics
connected to an iiyama ProLite E380s 1024x768 LCD display.

The machine boots 7.04 without problem.

Workaround: Uninstall compiz-core which won't work on these cards anyway.
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com
Version: 8.0.138 / Virus Database: 270.6.1/1608 - Release Date: 8/12/2008 4:59 PM

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Does this issue still occur with Intrepid or Jaunty, or is it a Hardy-only issue?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Also, Andreas please run 'sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.txt' and attach that file.

[Andreas Gustafsson (gson)]

> Does this issue still occur with Intrepid or Jaunty, or is it a Hardy-only issue?

I tried the 8.10 i386 live CD, and this particular problem no longer occurs; the machine now boots into a desktop rather than going into a login/dekstop loop. However, that desktop is having other problems; I just filed a separate bug report (bug #331472) about them.

> Also, Andreas please run 'sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.txt' and attach that file.

Attached to bug #331472.

[Tormod Volden (tormodvolden)]

Thanks, closing. It is still nominated for backporting to Hardy.