split screen wrap with nv and Intrepid daily-live

[Benjamin Kay]

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-nv

While testing today's (October 20, 2008) x86 Ubuntu daily-live on a friend's computer, I had a strange video problem once I got into X. The screen is split down the middle and wrapped around the sides, and there is a vertical green bar on the right side. Since a picture is worth 3,514,538 words (depending on your machine architecture and compression algorithm), I've attached a mock-up that should make everything clear. The visible mouse pointer is where it should be, i.e., if I move the mouse all the way to the right, it shows up on the right side of the monitor. Functionally, the mouse pointer is where the desktop should be, i.e., if I move the mouse all the way to the right and right-click, the context menu appears on the rightmost edge of the desktop (which is in the middle of the monitor).

There's no problem with usplash or the terminal. In X, everything appears normally if the vesa driver is used instead of the nv driver. I've attached the syslog from before and after switching from nv to vesa, as well as Xorg logs for both cases.

The pertinent line of lspci output is as follows:
1:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV36.2 [GeForce FX 5700] (rev a1)

The computer is attached to a Philips 17pf9936 monitor via a VGA cable.

Relevant package versions on the daily-live CD are:
linux-image-2.6.27-generic 2.6.27-7.12
xorg 1:7.4~5ubuntu2
xserver-xorg-video-nv 1:2.1.10-1ubuntu2
xserver-xorg-video-vesa 1:2.0.0-1ubuntu3

I'm nominating this for Intrepid, since GeForce FX are a fairly popular brand of video cards. Since there's a workaround (using vesa), my feelings won't be hurt if it gets rejected.

[Benjamin Kay (benkay)]

Bug still manifest in the Intrepid RC (Ubuntu x86 Desktop CD). Can anyone with a Nvidia card confirm this?

[Lauri Niskanen (ape3000)]

I'm having very similar problem. When I boot up the machine everything works fine. After some time (10 minutes to 2 hours) the screen splits. I can restore it with pressing CTRL+ALT+F1. Then the bug appears again after some waiting. The mouse cursor etc. behaves just like you descriped.

I found out that the problem occurs only if I'm using DVI cables. The screen doesn't split with analog cables, but that's not the solution. I can see the difference in the image quality.

I'm using Intrepid, nvidia-glx-177, Geforce 7950 GT and linux 2.6.27-11.

Screenshots look normal and there is no splitting. I GIMPed the screenshot to look like what I can see on the screen.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automated message]

Hi benkay,

Please attach the output of `lspci -vvnn` too.

[Lauri Niskanen (ape3000)]

Here is mine lspci -vvnn output.

[Benjamin Kay (benkay)]

Here's the output of `lspci -vvnn`.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automated message]

In Jaunty (9.04), we are dropping the nvidia-graphics-drivers-177 package, which
is now superseded by then nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 package.

  http://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/nvidia-graphics-drivers-180

To transition your bug into the new package, we need your help. Please do the following:

 a. Verify the bug occurs in Jaunty with the -180 driver
     (ISOs: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/jaunty/)
 b. If you haven't already, please include in the bug:
     * Your /var/log/Xorg.0.log
     * Your /etc/X11/xorg.conf
     * The output of `lspci -vvnn`
     * Steps to reproduce the issue
 c. Under Affects, click the down arrow to the left of 'nvidia-graphics-drivers-177'
 d. Edit the Package to change 'nvidia-graphics-drivers-177' to 'nvidia-graphics-drivers-180'
 e. Click Save Changes

Thank you!

[We'll expire the remaining -177 bugs in a month or so.]

[Benjamin Kay (benkay)]

The bug is still present in the x86 Daily Live from February 16, 2009. The version of xserver-xorg-video-nv on that CD is 1:2.1.12-1ubuntu1. As before, the workaround seems to be to force use of the vesa driver, or else to use the nv driver but limit the screen resolution (800x600 @ 16 bit color depth works for me). The split screen problem also goes away in an installation of Ubuntu Intrepid 8.10 if version 173 of the proprietary nvidia driver is used.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

[This is an automated message]

In Jaunty (9.04) we have dropped the nvidia-graphics-driver-177 package, as
it is superseded by nvidia-graphics-drivers-180.

Because of this, we are closing this bug as expired.

You are encouraged to file your -nvidia bug reports against the
nvidia-graphics-drivers-180 package.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Thank you for reporting this issue about xserver-xorg-video-nv. Starting
with Lucid, Ubuntu is transitioning to using the -nouveau video driver
by default instead of -nv. The reason for this change is because
upstream development for the -nv driver has been quite slow. We are
quite pleased with the upstream development speed for -nouveau, and hope
this will translate into swifter bug fixes as well.

Because of this, I'm closing this bug report at this time. I'm marking
it wontfix because what you describe is probably a valid issue, but we
do not have further plans to work on it in Ubuntu. If you would still like
to see this issue investigated, I would encourage you to file it
upstream at http://bugs.freedesktop.org/.