upgrade breaks graphic drivers and x, preventing login or startx

[dust]

see also here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305459

for some reasons the upgrade breaks proprietary graphics drivers

this means a flickering screen without the possibility to login or startx.

ATTENTION

Since this bug report is being linked to by news stories, it is getting viewed by many people with nvidia bugs that fail in similar ways but due to unrelated causes. I'd like to direct them to more appropriate bug reports:

The "blinks on reboot" issue is a bug in gdm, bug #441638. That blinking symptom will occur for any sort of failure of X to start, and there are a lot of reasons why X may not start, so be aware that just because someone else is reporting this same blinking behavior does not necessarily mean you have the same underlying cause as them, so keep digging. This is causing lots of confusion in bug reports.

For those who have upgraded since Intrepid or earlier, there is an issue reported where /sbin/lrm-video can cause nvidia to fail loading. That file no longer exists in Jaunty or Karmic and you can safely delete it as a work around. Bug #467490 describes this issue. I don't know how common this is, but if it is common we may need to make sure the upgrader removes the file properly. Manually uninstalling all nvidia packages *might* clear the file.

For people running -rt kernels, such as Ubuntu Studio users, -nvidia has a known incompatibility there, see bug #464125 for example. Similar situation for -pae kernels, see bug #454220 as a recent example.

Someone mentioned that "the upgrader disables the proprietary drivers". According to mvo, that is not correct, or at least not intentional. However, the upgrader *does* remove driver entries from xorg.conf if the driver is no longer present after upgrade. As far as I know, this should all work seamlessly for people, however several people have reported that removing their xorg.conf and reinstalling -nvidia helped, so it is possible there is an error in this logic. If you suspect this is the case, what we need is a full bug report filed using 'ubuntu-bug xorg'; in particular we need to see the xorg.conf files so we understand how the upgrader is misbehaving.

I see a lot in forum articles the advice that "the solution" is to remove "nvidia" or "fglrx" lines from xorg.conf. While this may help in getting the system functioning again, please note that it is not a solution - it merely turns off the proprietary drivers. Whatever the original problem was is still there, you're just using different video drivers. Also, be aware that both nvidia and fglrx install GL and other libraries on top of the normal system libraries, so if you install one of those drivers and then use something else, it may work for 2D but you may run into severe problems for 3D. This is also a known issue - bug 258038 describes one possible solution we will be considering for Lucid. It's a hard problem to solve for proprietary drivers though.

There are almost certainly more nvidia bugs, but we also have plenty of other bug reports (over 300 against -nvidia so far), many of which have been reported using ubuntu-bug so are closer to having the information we need.

Finally, regarding people skills, actually after thousands of X bug reports those get worn down to a raw nub so I don't think I have them any more. All that's left is a grumpy X maintainer.

p.s. Also see bug 438398 which appears to be the root cause for a lot of the nvidia failures. Unfortunately jockey may not be flagging these errors to the user (bug 441638) leading them to reboot without the nvidia driver fully installed.

[dust (hannes-b)]

thanks for spell checking.

i don't think that i installed proprietary graphics drivers.

[jack_spratt (jack-spratt)]

I had this same problem. Using Nvidia 8800gts, previously working perfectly in 9.04.

After upgrade X was broken, booted to CLI with flickering. Once logged in, startx said no screens and xinit no such file or folder.

After editing xorg.conf using nano to make X use vesa driver instead, I managed to boot to a desktop.

However The first time I did this I got four popup warning messages on the desktop saying critical kernel failure.

In the end I had to do a fresh install.

[dust (hannes-b)]

fresh install is not necessary

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8201026&postcount=23

nvidia is similar to solve

[Rob Lanphier (robla)]

For me, the problem was as simple as booting with a different .31 kernel. For whatever reason, 2.16.31-14-386 was installed as the default kernel, causing the problem as described above (error message: "(EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module-specific error, 0), (EE) No drivers available."). 2.6.31-14-generic was installed as an alternative kernel, which booted just fine.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Sounds like you probably have a proprietary driver compiled against kernel version X, but have upgraded to kernel version Y. Because they are closed source, the driver has to be rebuilt for a given kernel version, which means you have to take care to match your kernel and video driver versions, else it'll break.

[dust (hannes-b)]

no, you are wrong. i used the standard open source driver in jaunty from the repo, i also didnt compile anything. i didnt even install them because it booted with that driver after i changed the graphics card from a broken nvidia to ati in jaunty.

and beside this, the upgrade has to take care which kernel, x, driver and so on works together and this is not the case if you look into the forum.

so can i spread out your word that graphics problems are not going to be fixed?

[Richard Kleeman (kleeman)]

I had this problem of flickering while DRM compiled a new kernel module against the latest Karmic kernel. The flickering lasted a considerable time but after a few minutes presumably when the compilation had finished the system booted to a standard gdm screen and set the resolution properly. I checked and the nvidia module was loaded and acceleration was enabled perfectly fine.

The mad flashing for several minutes was however very disturbing I must say and gave the impression of a video driver mismatch.

[Richard Kleeman (kleeman)]

Sorry I meant DKMS was compiling a new nvidia module

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

"no, you are wrong. i used the standard open source driver in jaunty from the repo, i also didnt compile anything. i didnt even install them because it booted with that driver after i changed the graphics card from a broken nvidia to ati in jaunty."

What you're saying doesn't add up. In the bug description you said "the upgrade breaks proprietary graphics drivers" and here you say you use only open source drivers. Both things cannot be true.

I never said *you* compiled anything, what I said was the version of your kernel does not match what it is supposed to be. Look in your Xorg.0.log:

   Current Operating System: Linux dust 2.6.28-16-generic #55-Ubuntu SMP Tue Oct 20 19:48:24 UTC 2009 i686

Karmic ships 2.6.31. So you are not even using the Karmic kernel. The compile date on that is pretty recent, so if you didn't rebuild it, something or somebody did, and it would be no surprise that it would no longer work with the proprietary drivers. I don't know where you got that kernel, but it is not an X issue.

Regarding the flickering on boot, that is a known issue between gdm and upstart, bug #441638.

"so can i spread out your word that graphics problems are not going to be fixed?"

If you wish to make yourself look foolish, that is your own business.

[dust (hannes-b)]

was not my wording, see original description.

this is because i tried several kernels, also the older 2.6.28 because the new standard kernel 2.6.31 didnt bring me to login screen. after trying around and rebooting with livecd to get into the internet to look after help and recovery and normal kernels, i just grabbed the last x.log on the hd. so this was one of the tries with 2.6.28.

and about the bug you mentioned
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/441638

great, known since 1 month and not fixed for karmic! look into the ubuntu forum, a lot of people have this problem and are stuck. this is nothing short of a disaster! and the wording disaster is from a developer from one of the most known open source projects! and now i totally agree with him!

[FrankyT (theroarenator)]

well, this has made the international press (linking this bug specifically):
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/03/karmic_koala_frustration/

as well as this rather lengthy support thread:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305459

Dust, you likely had an driver installed that was inactive. you said that you didn't install anything after changing your vid card and from then used an open driver. did you remove the old one?

Bryce, you need to work on your people skills.

[dust (hannes-b)]

it is about 3 months ago when i changed the vid card. i dont remember if i removed the driver, but very likely not. iirc some nvidia stuff was removed at upgrade to 9.10.

when i now look into synaptics related to nvidia i have
xserver-xorg-video-nv
nvidia-96-modaliases
nvidia-185-modaliases
nvidia-173-modaliases
nvidia-common
smartdimmer

as i follow a bit the development of open source vid drivers at phoronix i knew, that ati dropped the support for older cards and people should use the open source drivers instead. so i had never the need of installing closed source drivers. in the time between the vid card change and the upgrade i had several reboots, mainly because of kernel header updates iirc.

[luvr (luc-vanrompaey)]

I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.10, 64-bit on an AMD-64 system with an on-board ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics adapter.

Upon reboot, I arrived at a character-mode login prompt, and X wouldn't start.
The following post provided me with the solution:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=8220582#post8220582

Basically, the xorg.conf file had a "Driver fglrx" line--which I had to delete. This simple step solved my issue.

Further observations: Prior to starting the install, I had installed the proprietary ATI driver into the Ubuntu LiveCD session that I was running. I have since retried the fresh install, but *without* installing the proprietary driver into the LiveCD session first; this time, the system booted just fine.

It appears that, if the proprietary driver got installed into the session from which you initiate the Ubuntu install to harddisk, the installer will specify that driver in the xorg.conf file for the target system, even though the driver itself will *not* get installed.

[Brian D. Carlstrom (bdc)]

I'm adding this comment to document my own experience that I resolved myself just to provide another datapoint.

I was running 9.04 with proprietary Nvidia drivers with rebuilds done with DKMS (but installed via Ubuntu restricted drivers as fas as I can recall, nothing done by hand).

After upgrade 9.10 could no longer compile the drivers with DKMS. Reverting from "nvidia" to "nv" in xorg.conf would fix things. It was disappointing that when X failed to start Ubuntu didn't automatically fall back into some safe mode which I've seen distros (including Ubuntu I believe) do before.

The problem with DKMS was that I was using a -i386 kernel, not -generic (linux-image-386 vs linux-image-generic). However, the wrong headers were installed (linux-headers-generic instead of linux-headers-386). Once I installed linux-headers-386 DKMS was able to build the nvidia driver and I was able to switch my xorg.conf back.

I can imagine than a non-technical user would have been hopeless to debug or resolve this.

Myself, I'm not sure what happened with 386 vs generic for the my kernel. I don't remember what I ran before in 9.04 but I don't recall manually choosing such a thing before. I append my /proc/cpuinfo before. One off the top of my head theory is somehow during the upgrade either my kernel was switched from -generic to -i386 or my headers were switched from -i386 to -generic or some "unnecessary" package was removed (linux-headers-386) even thought it was needed to compile nvidia with DKMS...

processor : 0
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 8
model name : Pentium III (Coppermine)
stepping : 6
cpu MHz : 996.663
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 2
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 mtrr pge mca cmov pse36 mmx fxsr sse up
bogomips : 1993.32
clflush size : 32
power management:

[dcam (david-pastornet)]

Perhaps if users end up here, this little guide could help some people overcome this problem. I had this problem myself, with nvidia hardware.

I have Nvidia video hardware and had the flashing problem when I updated to 9.10. I suspect that the flashing is caused by the gdm service trying to repeatedly start the X server over and over, but it fails to start, so it keeps retrying, which causes the flashing.

When it is flashing, nothing is properly working including the keyboard, so I had to force a reboot by holding down the power button for 10 seconds to force it off, then powering it up again a few seconds later.

Boot the Ubuntu live CD, sudo to root:

    sudo su -

Then use this command to display the drive's partition table (your install could be on a different drive, eg /dev/sdb but most are probably /dev/sda, that's a lower case L as option):

    fdisk -l /dev/sda

I then mounted the partition where the etc directory for the install is found:

    mkdir /stuff (a place to mount it)
    mount /dev/sda5 /stuff (this will likely be different for you, you'll have to choose the right linux partition):

and moved /etc/X11/xorg.conf aside:

    cd /stuff/etc/X11
    mv -i xorg.conf xorg.conf.fails

Then created a new xorg.conf:

cat >xorg.conf <<EOF
Section "Device"
        Identifier "Configured Video Device"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
        Identifier "Configured Monitor"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
        Identifier "Default Screen"
        Monitor "Configured Monitor"
        Device "Configured Video Device"
EndSection
EOF

I then unmounted the partition:

    cd /
    umount /stuff

then rebooted (and removed the bootable cd):

    reboot

Once rebooted the flashing no longer happens, but you're running the open source video driver, which works but doesn't give the best result. If you're wanting to use Ubuntu to set up the closed source driver, you can logon and let it inform you that the closed source driver can be used, proceed that way, and it should all be automatic.

If you're wanting to use a driver that is more recent than what ubuntu provides, then you can download it, and use the following steps:

Once you've got the login screen, press CTRL-ALT-F1 and logon

Then become root:

    sudo su -

Then stop the gdm service because the driver install needs X to be down while installing:

    service gdm stop

Then run the nvidia installer and proceed the install

Once installed you can do this:

    service gdm start

And your X server should be up and running then with the nvidia driver. You can flick back to the console window with CTRL-ALT-F1 and logout, then flick back to X with CTRL-ALT-F7.

[Jamie Nadeau (james2432)]

I've had this in Karmic Alpha.. to fix : boot in recovery mode ( on grub it will be the one that says (Recovery Mode))
Choose normal/resume do a(as root):

mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/xorg.conf.bak

reinstall graphics drivers

you can search for the currently installed nvidia drivers(generic) with(as root) :
dpkg --get-selections | grep nvidia

if you are installing from NVIDIA BLOB either run with -aNo arguments or say no to auto-configure xorg

I think the problem lies in xorg now needs the PCI-ID of the card in the configuration file

[Hyppy (hyppy99)]

I was having this flickering screen on the TTY1 prompt problem.
My fix for a Dell E1750 with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 Card:

(ssh into the machine if possible, or boot in recovery mode)
su -
service stop gdm
apt-get remove xorg-driver-fglrx xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-ati
apt-get autoremove
apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-ati libdrm-radeon1
Xorg -configure
cp /root/xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf
init 6

This will blast your current xorg.conf away. Sorry. Back it up if you're sentimental.

The big problem I had, besides the initial graphics floundering, was that when the xserver-xorg-video-radeon package was installed, it didn't install libdrm-radeon1. This caused Xorg -configure to spit out a nasty segfault.

[Ernesto Ismail (ernesto-ismail)]

I had a similar issue, but now have 9.10 running smoothly.

It seems that the upgrade process disables all proprietary drivers, but does so without updating xorg.conf to use the default non-proprietary drivers.

All I did to fix this was login via a rescue shell, edit xorg.conf so that nothing was listed in the "Device" section. hal recgnised my hardware and I could boot normally (of course my twinview was now broken). I installed the proprietary driver and reverted to my old xorg.conf - no issues.

The fix - just search xorg.conf for proprietary drivers and edit accordingly - can probably be included in the uprage sequesnce quite easily.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

If you are affected by this problem and upgraded from 9.04, could you please attach the logs in /var/log/dist-upgrade/* ?

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Since this bug report is being linked to by news stories, it is getting viewed by many people with nvidia bugs that fail in similar ways but due to unrelated causes. I'd like to direct them to more appropriate bug reports:

The "blinks on reboot" issue is a bug in gdm, bug #441638. That blinking symptom will occur for any sort of failure of X to start, and there are a lot of reasons why X may not start, so be aware that just because someone else is reporting this same blinking behavior does not necessarily mean you have the same underlying cause as them, so keep digging. This is causing lots of confusion in bug reports.

For those who have upgraded since Intrepid or earlier, there is an issue reported where /sbin/lrm-video can cause nvidia to fail loading. That file no longer exists in Jaunty or Karmic and you can safely delete it as a work around. Bug #467490 describes this issue. I don't know how common this is, but if it is common we may need to make sure the upgrader removes the file properly. Manually uninstalling all nvidia packages *might* clear the file.

For people running -rt kernels, such as Ubuntu Studio users, -nvidia has a known incompatibility there, see bug #464125 for example. Similar situation for -pae kernels, see bug #454220 as a recent example.

Someone mentioned that "the upgrader disables the proprietary drivers". According to mvo, that is not correct, or at least not intentional. However, the upgrader *does* remove driver entries from xorg.conf if the driver is no longer present after upgrade. As far as I know, this should all work seamlessly for people, however several people have reported that removing their xorg.conf and reinstalling -nvidia helped, so it is possible there is an error in this logic. If you suspect this is the case, what we need is a full bug report filed using 'ubuntu-bug xorg'; in particular we need to see the xorg.conf files so we understand how the upgrader is misbehaving.

I see a lot in forum articles the advice that "the solution" is to remove "nvidia" or "fglrx" lines from xorg.conf. While this may help in getting the system functioning again, please note that it is not a solution - it merely turns off the proprietary drivers. Whatever the original problem was is still there, you're just using different video drivers. Also, be aware that both nvidia and fglrx install GL and other libraries on top of the normal system libraries, so if you install one of those drivers and then use something else, it may work for 2D but you may run into severe problems for 3D. This is also a known issue - bug 258038 describes one possible solution we will be considering for Lucid. It's a hard problem to solve for proprietary drivers though.

There are almost certainly more nvidia bugs, but we also have plenty of other bug reports (over 300 against -nvidia so far), many of which have been reported using ubuntu-bug so are closer to having the information we need.

Finally, regarding people skills, actually after thousands of X bug reports those get worn down to a raw nub so I don't think I have them any more. All that's left is a grumpy X maintainer.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Also see bug 438398 which appears to be the root cause for a lot of the nvidia failures. Unfortunately jockey may not be flagging these errors to the user (bug 441638) leading them to reboot without the nvidia driver fully installed.

[Chris Balcum (sherl0k)]

I solved this with my NVidia 9800M GTS by doing the following:

1) boot in recovery mode
2) drop to a root shell with networking
3) init 3
4) log in
5) elinks/links/lynx to http://www.nvidia.com
6) download the latest Linux driver for x64 (or x86)
7) bash the .run
8) sudo nvidia-xconfig
9) reboot normally

it's a bit of a pain, but you get the latest NVidia drivers this way, and they work. I'm a speed demon so I prefer having the latest drivers anyway.

I upgraded a couple other machines at my work, one with an older 5500 series Geforce and one with a newer ATI Radeon 4850, and did not come across this problem.

I'm no expert but if installing the drivers directly from NVidia work, wouldn't the issue be with the way that Ubuntu packages/installs it, rather than it be the drivers themselves?

[AnSc (spam2-anschitech)]

I have the same problems, my system is a Lenovo ThinkCentre M55 with a on-board Intel graphics adapter "Q965/Q963 Express Chipset Family". I think the bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/404421 is related.

[Joe "Rotund" Tennies (joe-tennies)]

My wife's computer had a problem with the NVIDIA driver not booting up correctly when going from 9.04 to 9.10 less than a week before the official release. To fix it, I just rebooted and chose the "fix it mode" (I forget the name). Then picked "fix X", and it worked.

[[e-mail] (claudio-guendelman)]

I Upgrade and now dont bott. ido that from Cero. after that i Go Again with 9.04 all ok i upgrade and same thing. After upgrade to 9.10 my computer dont boot

[SubBASS (subbass)]

Clean installed after a patchy dist upgrade with seemingly random application crashes.

Landed at the failed boot, black screen and blinking login text. jumped through various virtual terminals with ctrl+alt+F1-F6 until one stopped flashing and permitted normal operation. Then I used FTP to download the 190.42 package as described by Lapdog on this page http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305459&page=3 though I did add in a step "sudo service gdm stop" before running the package in step 7

This permitted the machine to boot normally when I rebooted and touch wood, has behaved since.

Installing the Nvidia driver like this means next Kernal update I may have a problem again (I think?), is there a step I can take now to head that off and have normal behaviour from the pesky machine?

[John Pye (jdpipe)]

My solution was to remove all "nvidia*" packages from my system and to edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf to change "nvidia" to "nv". It works for me.

Also had problems during my update with hard drive failing to be recognised by UUID.

Because thisd upgrade, like, totally broke my computer, I have added a comment here:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KarmicUpgrades

[BavarianPH (bavarianph)]

When I upgraded to Karmic I noticed that the resolutions

and refresh rates were lower than in Jaunty.

So I wrote higher values into the Xorg.conf and rebooted.

After reboot I got the same flickering problems as the others.

I used the recovery CD to delete these values,

at one time even deleting the Xorg.conf file, and OS booted fine.

Karmic does not write to an Xorg.conf file, it creates its own values,

and I do not know were it stores this configuration, if at all.

The Xorg.log shows you how it does this.

The mechanism and video drivers work different in Karmic,

then in Jaunty.

Xorg.conf is not even needed under Karmic,

but if it is present, it will read the values, and if higher then

the Karmic prober, it will fail to boot and display properly.

So if one leaves the Xorg.conf file alone or even deletes it,

Karmic will be all-right.

My concern is, that, I want the higher resolutions &

refresh rates that Jaunty gave me.

Karmic refuses to give the video card and monitor the

maximum values that they are capable of.

I filed 3 bugs: 450055, 458624, 458625, on:

restrictive & unalterable resolutions &
low refresh rates -

xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu) -
Undecided Confirmed -

under Karmic, to get the developers attention.

also bug # 428477
Display configuration: a new version of
displayconfig-gtk is necessary -

gnome-control-center (Ubuntu) -
Wishlist New -

I really wished, I had a more direct line to the

developers, to encourage them to fix these

annoyances.

Perhaps, a new way of approaching bugs is

necessary, to quickly resolve problems, before

going on to the next Ubuntu version?!

BavarianPH,

Ubuntu forever!

[[e-mail] (claudio-guendelman)]

I give up. i only can use 9.04

I fell like shit.

Claudio

2009/11/17 BavarianPH <email address hidden>

> When I upgraded to Karmic I noticed that the resolutions
>
> and refresh rates were lower than in Jaunty.
>
> So I wrote higher values into the Xorg.conf and rebooted.
>
> After reboot I got the same flickering problems as the others.
>
> I used the recovery CD to delete these values,
>
> at one time even deleting the Xorg.conf file, and OS booted fine.
>
> Karmic does not write to an Xorg.conf file, it creates its own values,
>
> and I do not know were it stores this configuration, if at all.
>
> The Xorg.log shows you how it does this.
>
> The mechanism and video drivers work different in Karmic,
>
> then in Jaunty.
>
> Xorg.conf is not even needed under Karmic,
>
> but if it is present, it will read the values, and if higher then
>
> the Karmic prober, it will fail to boot and display properly.
>
> So if one leaves the Xorg.conf file alone or even deletes it,
>
> Karmic will be all-right.
>
> My concern is, that, I want the higher resolutions &
>
> refresh rates that Jaunty gave me.
>
> Karmic refuses to give the video card and monitor the
>
> maximum values that they are capable of.
>
> I filed 3 bugs: 450055, 458624, 458625, on:
>
> restrictive & unalterable resolutions &
> low refresh rates -
>
> xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu) -
> Undecided Confirmed -
>
> under Karmic, to get the developers attention.
>
> also bug # 428477
> Display configuration: a new version of
> displayconfig-gtk is necessary -
>
> gnome-control-center (Ubuntu) -
> Wishlist New -
>
> I really wished, I had a more direct line to the
>
> developers, to encourage them to fix these
>
> annoyances.
>
> Perhaps, a new way of approaching bugs is
>
> necessary, to quickly resolve problems, before
>
> going on to the next Ubuntu version?!
>
> BavarianPH,
>
> Ubuntu forever!
>
> ** Attachment added: "Xorg.0.log"
> http://launchpadlibrarian.net/35806335/Xorg.0.log
>
> --
> upgrade breaks graphic drivers and x, preventing login or startx
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/464591
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “xorg” package in Ubuntu: Invalid
>
> Bug description:
> see also here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305459
>
> for some reasons the upgrade breaks proprietary graphics drivers
>
> this means a flickering screen without the possibility to login or startx.
>

--
"Yo estoy con Marco, Súmate al Cambio".

http://www.guendelman.com

         Claudio Guendelman U.
        <email address hidden>
           www.guendelman.com

[JFB (jfb00)]

The same issue I have with Intel video card on toshiba
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1337163
Please help!!

Thanks
Johnny

[Hypergod_2 (hypergod-2)]

you just have to stop gdm durning flickering screen in tty1 login
type
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
then install nvidia drivers(not open source one)
if you have not downloaded drivers, boot from previous kernel and download them
then install drivers by
sudo sh NVIDIA.run ,or whatever is your driver package file name
then start gdm
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start
and you will get u your display back
(works in most cases) including mine..

[WeatherGod (ben-v-root)]

Hypergod_2, unless you are a project developer or a member of the bug squad, please do not modify the status of the bug report, and especially do not assign yourself to the bug report. The assignment is meant for developers who will be committing a update to the package to fix a bug.

[hawthornso23 (hawthorn)]

This just isn't good enough. Maybe I should file a bug report against launchpad.

Here we see a very serious problem which effects a very large number of users and the response is to first label it `WONT FIX' and then label it `INVALID'. I've seen this time after time on Launchpad, and it is just WRONG.

There are technical meanings to the use of those labels and under those technical meanings maybe the use of them here is even appropriate. But to someone facing the disaster of a machine that is totally unresponsive after upgrade what message do those words send.

INVALID = we simply don't believe you. Or maybe we intended our software to behave in this way.

WONT FIX = perhaps our software did trash your system but we don't care. Sucks to be you. Go away. We won't help you and we don't plan to do anything about it.

Not very friendly or supportive is it. It is an especially bad look in a bug report which is serious enough to get coverage in the mainstream media which you all know about because it was commented on here.

Could we please have a launchpad culture adjustment. I think anyone applying the labels `INVALID" and 'WONT FIX' should be expected to at least explain briefly why that response is appropriate, and to make at least one minimal constructive suggestion as to what should come next for those afflicted by the described problem who want to continue to push for a resolution. Those labels are applied far too quickly and indiscriminately in my opinion. It isn't a good look.

[sergioroa (s-roa)]

I don't know if this is the right place to report this but I have had also problems with the ubuntu upgrade using an old Nvidia Geforce 440 Go card. I installed the old nvidia-glx-96 using the 2.6.31-17-386, but the modules didn't compile. So, I tried the 2.6.31-17-generic kernel and it works. Maybe with a new nvidia-glx would also work but i didn't try

[svaens (svaens)]

question: How can a bug report which is directly referenced to by an official Ubuntu community help page (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/KarmicUpgrades) be listed as 'Invalid' ?

[Handssolow (handssolow)]

I've tried to run three live 9.10 CDs which I burnt in the last 24 hrs, Ubuntu 32 bit Desktop, Ubuntu UNR or Xubuntu all end up with the same flickering screen as described by others here. I want run a live CD to install Ubuntu UNR on USB flash memory. I am able to successfully run a live CD of Hardy Heron 8.10 on my Desktop and also run 9.10 Ubuntu on my hard drive updated from the previous version. Video is a GeForce 6600 GT.

With 9.10 live CD I'm stuck as I cannot enter any data on a flashing screen's command line. As suggested above, next I'm going to see what happens if I turn off my monitor when it's flashing and wait a while before turning it back on to see if things have settled. I just want to be able run the live CD i do not need to install it on my hard drive, I have 9.10 there already.

[Handssolow (handssolow)]

I'm still not certain if this is the most appropriate place to post about the bug. I am unable to run Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu UNR 9.10 live CDs so I am thinking this is a significant bug.

This evening I was eventually able to stop the flickering with sudo stop gdm.
sudo nano etc/X11/xorg.conf listed the vesa driver. With Ubuntu 9.10 I use on my hard drive I use the current recommended nvidia ver 185 driver.
If I sudo start gdm then the flickering returns.

[joherrer (joherrer)]

I am invited now to upgrade to 9.10.
I first installed 9.10 and had to quit due to nvidia.
Then my son installed 9.4 and it is doing well.
¿Is it safe to accept the challenge upgrade?

[[e-mail] (claudio-guendelman)]

I still have the same Bug. i Upgrade and i install from cero i
mean i do a clean instal and my graphic card ATI radeon breaks.

Claudio Fron Chile

2010/2/6 joherrer <email address hidden>

> I am invited now to upgrade to 9.10.
> I first installed 9.10 and had to quit due to nvidia.
> Then my son installed 9.4 and it is doing well.
> ¿Is it safe to accept the challenge upgrade?
>
> --
> upgrade breaks graphic drivers and x, preventing login or startx
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/464591
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “xorg” package in Ubuntu: Invalid
>
> Bug description:
> see also here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305459
>
> for some reasons the upgrade breaks proprietary graphics drivers
>
> this means a flickering screen without the possibility to login or startx.
>
> ATTENTION
>
> Since this bug report is being linked to by news stories, it is getting
> viewed by many people with nvidia bugs that fail in similar ways but due to
> unrelated causes. I'd like to direct them to more appropriate bug reports:
>
> The "blinks on reboot" issue is a bug in gdm, bug #441638. That blinking
> symptom will occur for any sort of failure of X to start, and there are a
> lot of reasons why X may not start, so be aware that just because someone
> else is reporting this same blinking behavior does not necessarily mean you
> have the same underlying cause as them, so keep digging. This is causing
> lots of confusion in bug reports.
>
> For those who have upgraded since Intrepid or earlier, there is an issue
> reported where /sbin/lrm-video can cause nvidia to fail loading. That file
> no longer exists in Jaunty or Karmic and you can safely delete it as a work
> around. Bug #467490 describes this issue. I don't know how common this is,
> but if it is common we may need to make sure the upgrader removes the file
> properly. Manually uninstalling all nvidia packages *might* clear the file.
>
> For people running -rt kernels, such as Ubuntu Studio users, -nvidia has a
> known incompatibility there, see bug #464125 for example. Similar situation
> for -pae kernels, see bug #454220 as a recent example.
>
> Someone mentioned that "the upgrader disables the proprietary drivers".
> According to mvo, that is not correct, or at least not intentional. However,
> the upgrader *does* remove driver entries from xorg.conf if the driver is no
> longer present after upgrade. As far as I know, this should all work
> seamlessly for people, however several people have reported that removing
> their xorg.conf and reinstalling -nvidia helped, so it is possible there is
> an error in this logic. If you suspect this is the case, what we need is a
> full bug report filed using 'ubuntu-bug xorg'; in particular we need to see
> the xorg.conf files so we understand how the upgrader is misbehaving.
>
> I see a lot in forum articles the advice that "the solution" is to remove
> "nvidia" or "fglrx" lines from xorg.conf. While this may help in getting the
> system functioning again, please note that it is not a solution - it merely
> turns off the proprietary drivers. Whatever the original ...

[Stefan Pielmeier (stefan-symlinux)]

It is save, in case you feel able to fix the problems like described in
the release notes. In case you want to have things work out of the box,
I advice you to continue with 9.4

Ciao, Stefan.

<email address hidden> wrote:
> I still have the same Bug. i Upgrade and i install from cero i
> mean i do a clean instal and my graphic card ATI radeon breaks.
>
> Claudio Fron Chile
>
> 2010/2/6 joherrer <email address hidden>
>
>
>> I am invited now to upgrade to 9.10.
>> I first installed 9.10 and had to quit due to nvidia.
>> Then my son installed 9.4 and it is doing well.
>> ¿Is it safe to accept the challenge upgrade?
>>
>> --
>> upgrade breaks graphic drivers and x, preventing login or startx
>> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/464591
>> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
>> of the bug.
>>
>> Status in “xorg” package in Ubuntu: Invalid
>>
>> Bug description:
>> see also here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305459
>>
>> for some reasons the upgrade breaks proprietary graphics drivers
>>
>> this means a flickering screen without the possibility to login or startx.
>>
>> ATTENTION
>>
>> Since this bug report is being linked to by news stories, it is getting
>> viewed by many people with nvidia bugs that fail in similar ways but due to
>> unrelated causes. I'd like to direct them to more appropriate bug reports:
>>
>> The "blinks on reboot" issue is a bug in gdm, bug #441638. That blinking
>> symptom will occur for any sort of failure of X to start, and there are a
>> lot of reasons why X may not start, so be aware that just because someone
>> else is reporting this same blinking behavior does not necessarily mean you
>> have the same underlying cause as them, so keep digging. This is causing
>> lots of confusion in bug reports.
>>
>> For those who have upgraded since Intrepid or earlier, there is an issue
>> reported where /sbin/lrm-video can cause nvidia to fail loading. That file
>> no longer exists in Jaunty or Karmic and you can safely delete it as a work
>> around. Bug #467490 describes this issue. I don't know how common this is,
>> but if it is common we may need to make sure the upgrader removes the file
>> properly. Manually uninstalling all nvidia packages *might* clear the file.
>>
>> For people running -rt kernels, such as Ubuntu Studio users, -nvidia has a
>> known incompatibility there, see bug #464125 for example. Similar situation
>> for -pae kernels, see bug #454220 as a recent example.
>>
>> Someone mentioned that "the upgrader disables the proprietary drivers".
>> According to mvo, that is not correct, or at least not intentional. However,
>> the upgrader *does* remove driver entries from xorg.conf if the driver is no
>> longer present after upgrade. As far as I know, this should all work
>> seamlessly for people, however several people have reported that removing
>> their xorg.conf and reinstalling -nvidia helped, so it is possible there is
>> an error in this logic. If you suspect this is the case, what we need is a
>> full bug report filed using 'ubuntu-bug xorg'; in particular we need to see
>> the xorg.conf files so we understand how the upgrader is misbehaving....

[[e-mail] (claudio-guendelman)]

tup i will keeo 9.4 for a few until net release.

tjx Claudio

2010/2/7 Stefan Pielmeier <email address hidden>

> It is save, in case you feel able to fix the problems like described in
> the release notes. In case you want to have things work out of the box,
> I advice you to continue with 9.4
>
> Ciao, Stefan.
>
> <email address hidden> wrote:
> > I still have the same Bug. i Upgrade and i install from cero i
> > mean i do a clean instal and my graphic card ATI radeon breaks.
> >
> > Claudio Fron Chile
> >
> > 2010/2/6 joherrer <email address hidden>
> >
> >
> >> I am invited now to upgrade to 9.10.
> >> I first installed 9.10 and had to quit due to nvidia.
> >> Then my son installed 9.4 and it is doing well.
> >> ¿Is it safe to accept the challenge upgrade?
> >>
> >> --
> >> upgrade breaks graphic drivers and x, preventing login or startx
> >> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/464591
> >> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> >> of the bug.
> >>
> >> Status in “xorg” package in Ubuntu: Invalid
> >>
> >> Bug description:
> >> see also here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305459
> >>
> >> for some reasons the upgrade breaks proprietary graphics drivers
> >>
> >> this means a flickering screen without the possibility to login or
> startx.
> >>
> >> ATTENTION
> >>
> >> Since this bug report is being linked to by news stories, it is getting
> >> viewed by many people with nvidia bugs that fail in similar ways but due
> to
> >> unrelated causes. I'd like to direct them to more appropriate bug
> reports:
> >>
> >> The "blinks on reboot" issue is a bug in gdm, bug #441638. That blinking
> >> symptom will occur for any sort of failure of X to start, and there are
> a
> >> lot of reasons why X may not start, so be aware that just because
> someone
> >> else is reporting this same blinking behavior does not necessarily mean
> you
> >> have the same underlying cause as them, so keep digging. This is causing
> >> lots of confusion in bug reports.
> >>
> >> For those who have upgraded since Intrepid or earlier, there is an issue
> >> reported where /sbin/lrm-video can cause nvidia to fail loading. That
> file
> >> no longer exists in Jaunty or Karmic and you can safely delete it as a
> work
> >> around. Bug #467490 describes this issue. I don't know how common this
> is,
> >> but if it is common we may need to make sure the upgrader removes the
> file
> >> properly. Manually uninstalling all nvidia packages *might* clear the
> file.
> >>
> >> For people running -rt kernels, such as Ubuntu Studio users, -nvidia has
> a
> >> known incompatibility there, see bug #464125 for example. Similar
> situation
> >> for -pae kernels, see bug #454220 as a recent example.
> >>
> >> Someone mentioned that "the upgrader disables the proprietary drivers".
> >> According to mvo, that is not correct, or at least not intentional.
> However,
> >> the upgrader *does* remove driver entries from xorg.conf if the driver
> is no
> >> longer present after upgrade. As far as I know, this should all work
> >> seamlessly for people, however several people have reported that
> removing
> >> their xorg.conf and reinstalling -n...

[Matt Wilkie (maphew)]

how can this bug possibly be marked "invalid"??

I had a system running just fine 9.04, answered "yes" to upgrade to 9.10, went through that process for awhile, rebooted, and now the only way I can use my computer is ssh in from remote because the local display is either flickering like mad or completely blank (after renaming/deleting xorg.conf). So yes "upgrade breaks graphic drivers and x, preventing login or startx" is true and real.

I feel for the maintainer(s) whose nerves worn to a nub. A whole lot of people complaining at you and expecting you to fix their pain is *not* fun, or easy. That does not make the users pain irrelevant or not real though. So if you've had enough, say so. If you don't have the time/energy/resources/motivation to fix the problem, say that. Please don't tell us the bug does not exist, I'm staring right it and so are a lot of others.

[Matt Wilkie (maphew)]

this is what got my system working again:

    * ssh in from remote
    * delete existing /etc/X11/xorg.conf (this step may not have been needed)
    * download from nvidia.com the NVIDIA-Linux-*.run for your hardware and copy it to your PC (I did it with a second PC and transfered via scp)
    * run the NVIDIA-Linux-*.run
    * Follow the instructions
    * reboot

adapted from http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8194624&postcount=8

[[e-mail] (claudio-guendelman)]

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Claudio Guendelman
Cordinador de Desarrollos Tecnologicos en Guendelman.com
Chile

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