After upgrade, nothing shows up on screen during and after boot

[Jeremy Bícha]

Binary package hint: usplash

I am using Intrepid. After the most recent update, which included usplash 0.5.52. Now when I boot, I get a black screen. I can't even see the boot screen (but I hear the boot screen sound effect). I can login, but also, continue to see nothing. If I remove "splash" from my grub options, I can boot normally (though, obviously I don't see the splash screen.) Before this update (approximately 15 July), I booted and rebooted Intrepid several times without issue.

I am using Ubuntu Intrepid 32 bit. My graphics card is a Intel 915GM.

[plun (plun)]

I have the same challenge, Intrepid 32 bit and a nVidia card, nvidia-glx-177 installed.
tty is also broken for me , Ctrl-Alt-F1 > F6

Default vga value ????

1024x768 as screen

I also have startup-manager installed.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/intrepid/startupmanager

/boot/grub/menu.lst

## ## End Default Options ##

title Ubuntu intrepid (development branch), kernel 2.6.26-4-generic
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-4-generic root=UUID=ae6cb871-2fd7-490d-afb8-93b97a82fb3e ro quiet splash vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-4-generic
quiet

[Dean Loros (autocrosser)]

My issue is that at times I have nothing--at times red & white + green & white alternating vertical lines & at times well-spaced white dots on the full screen. Nvidia 177 driver, 8600GT OC, 32 bit Intrepid.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

There is a known Compiz bug with -intel we're working on which could produce behavior like this. Please test by doing chmod a-x /usr/bin/compiz from a console window and see if you can boot up into a non-compiz environment. If so, then this is a duplicate of that compiz bug.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I just uploaded a new usplash-theme-ubuntu which should fix at least the usplash part. Confirmation appreciated!

[Dean Loros (autocrosser)]

Not using Compiz, so can not comment if that is the problem---will test the
new usplash this evening (about 5/6 hrs from now)

Thanks!!
Dean

On 7/23/08, Bryce Harrington <email address hidden> wrote:
>
> There is a known Compiz bug with -intel we're working on which could
> produce behavior like this. Please test by doing chmod a-x
> /usr/bin/compiz from a console window and see if you can boot up into a
> non-compiz environment. If so, then this is a duplicate of that compiz
> bug.
>
> ** Changed in: usplash (Ubuntu Intrepid)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
>
> --
> After upgrade, nothing shows up on screen during and after boot
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/249037
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Dean Loros (autocrosser)]

Hi martin---

tried the new usplash-theme, I am afraid that I must report no
change...first reboot was with a solid warning & vertical red/white &
green/black stripes & the second reboot only differed by not having the
warning. Anything I can include to help pin the problem down?

Dean Loros
autocrosser

Martin Pitt wrote:
> I just uploaded a new usplash-theme-ubuntu which should fix at least the
> usplash part. Confirmation appreciated!
>

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Dean Loros [2008-07-24 0:59 -0000]:
> tried the new usplash-theme, I am afraid that I must report no
> change...first reboot was with a solid warning & vertical red/white &
> green/black stripes & the second reboot only differed by not having the
> warning. Anything I can include to help pin the problem down?

Right, same for me. usplash works fine when I start it out of the
running system, but not at boot time. I don't have a clue why either,
I'm afraid.

[Nico Crama (rossocrama)]

Same issue here: usplash does not work, furthermore boot sequence starts often with a blank screen, that remain blank also when X starts. System and X work fine only when the boot is done in text mode. I have an Intel 945 Video.

[David Vonka (vonkad)]

The same issue here. In my case the behavior is kernel dependent.

With the new kernels (2.6.26-XX) I get this bug and have to boot without usplash. With the 2.6.24-19 kernel the usplash works OK.

[Fahim Abdun-Nur (fahim-a)]

Yep; upgraded to Intrepid from Hardy just a couple of days ago. (I too have the 915 chipset)

A bit drastic, but I've tried this a couple of times, and the way I've resorted to consistently getting an actually usable UI (there's only so much I can do with ssh) is by removing usplash

sudo apt-get remove usplash

Waiting for an eventual fix, but in the meantime I can survive seeing semi-coherent text go by without having a fancy boot splash screen...

[Saivann Carignan (oxmosys)]

There's been several people reporting blank or corrupted usplash in Intrepid including myself. I just found that if I boot without usplash, right after Grub menu, initramfs complains :uvesafb : Failed to execute /sbin/v86d

This is strange because I don't use any framebuffer mode, and uvesafb seems to start anyway. /sbin/v86d is not installed by default. In my case, installing "v86d" package is a workaround that brought usplash back to life. Can someone try this workaround and confirm if it solves the issue?

See also bug 246269

[Bobby (lostinquestions)]

I'm sorry -- with that fix, it now works for you with usplash installed? If that's what you mean, no, installing v86d did not work for me.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Saïvann Carignan [2008-07-25 23:41 -0000]:
> This is strange because I don't use any framebuffer mode, and uvesafb
> seems to start anyway. /sbin/v86d is not installed by default. In my
> case, installing "v86d" package is a workaround that brought usplash
> back to life. Can someone try this workaround and confirm if it solves
> the issue?

That only makes it worse for me. Also, I experimented with
blacklisting the uvesafb module, but it didn't help either.

[Bobby (lostinquestions)]

Has anyone tried reinstalling usplash? I just removed it, and reinstalled it to try a few things (which I later reverted), and forgot to remove it. Upon restart, it worked and gdm loaded.

If this works for anyone else, maybe there's some specific difference between the default config and the config after reinstalling. I'm no expert, you guys can decide.

Wanted to point out that after this, I seem to get multiple load bars... like, there's on load bar, and then another load bar forms some where else (but it doesn't have the orange status bar inside it). Maybe another bug, or just my computer?

[Fahim Abdun-Nur (fahim-a)]

Hi Bobby, Yes; I noticed the multiple load bars as well first time
around...of course, the next time I rebooted, I was back to the scenario of
a blank screen.

So removing/installing usplash didn't seem to work (and neither did v86d)

On Sat, Jul 26, 2008 at 5:00 PM, Bobby <email address hidden> wrote:

> Has anyone tried reinstalling usplash? I just removed it, and
> reinstalled it to try a few things (which I later reverted), and forgot
> to remove it. Upon restart, it worked and gdm loaded.
>
> If this works for anyone else, maybe there's some specific difference
> between the default config and the config after reinstalling. I'm no
> expert, you guys can decide.
>
> Wanted to point out that after this, I seem to get multiple load bars...
> like, there's on load bar, and then another load bar forms some where
> else (but it doesn't have the orange status bar inside it). Maybe
> another bug, or just my computer?
>
> --
> After upgrade, nothing shows up on screen during and after boot
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/249037
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Dean Loros (autocrosser)]

The multiple bars is one of many issues I have seen with Usplash--they tend to have a set vertical & horizontal spacing from the main one.

[Michael Sotnikov (stari4ek)]

It looks like these bugs are the same:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/v86d/+bug/189621
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/246269

The problem is about non-working vesa, if it doesn't work correctly usplash will not too.

[Juan Pablo Salazar Bertín (snifer)]

@Saïvann Carignan (comment #11):

It works for me, too.

[Providence SALUMU M. (providence-salumu)]

Hi everyone,

After installing v86d, I now have the following errors :

[ 2.018164] uvesafb: Getting VBE info block failed (eax=0x4f00, err=-3)
[ 2.018164] uvesafb: vbe_init() failed with -22
[ 2.018164] uvesafb: probe of uvesafb.0 failed with error -22

I suspect that "err=-3" still means "No such /sbin/v86d file". (From include/asm-generic/errno-base.h, I see #define ESRCH 3 /* No such process */)

I then checked to see in the initramfs file, /sbin/v86d exits though!

Another strange behavior is that unloading and reloading the uvesafb after the kernel has completed the booting stage works without errors.

I hope these hints help someone to solve this...

[goto (gotolaunchpad)]

I am also experiencing this problem -- multiple beeps upon reboot (sometimes) followed by either:
1. A black screen until kdm loads
2. Blue/Red background with white vertical bands instead of boot kernel messages
3. Normal boot with kernel messages but no usplash whatsoever.

It seems the beeps happen in concert with either 1. or 2., when it does 3. there are no beeps.

Interesting messages from dmesg:
=====
[ 1.703488] uvesafb: NVIDIA Corporation, GT200 Board - 0651s004, Chip Rev , OEM: NVIDIA, VBE v3.0
[ 1.772790] Program usplash tried to access /dev/mem between 0->e00000.
[ 2.594371] uvesafb: VBIOS/hardware doesn't support DDC transfers
[ 2.594371] uvesafb: no monitor limits have been set, default refresh rate will be used
[ 2.594371] uvesafb: scrolling: redraw
=====

See the second line especially...

followed by:
=====
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,800000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,400000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,200000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,100000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,80000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,40000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,20000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,10000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,8000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,4000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,2000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] mtrr: type mismatch for f5000000,1000 old: write-back new: write-combining
[ 2.598371] uvesafb: framebuffer at 0xf5000000, mapped to 0xffffc20011800000, using 14336k, total 14336k
[ 2.598371] fb0: VESA VGA frame buffer device
[ 2.605070] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 80x30
=====

System specs follow:
Hardware: Core2Duo/Intel P45/nVidia GTX260
Software: KUbuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex installed at Alpha 2, updated to latest via 'aptitude dist-upgrade'.
The v86d package is installed (repeatedly situation 3. without it).

=====[/etc/usplash.conf]=====
# Usplash configuration file
# These parameters will only apply after running update-initramfs.
xres=1920
yres=1200
=====[/etc/usplash.conf]=====

=====[/boot/grub/menu.lst]=====
(...)
title Ubuntu intrepid (development branch), kernel 2.6.26-5-generic
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-5-generic root=UUID=03cbe687-58cb-4805-a4f3-5b6c5d11c4db ro quiet splash crashkernel=384M-2G:64M@16M,2G-:128M@16M
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.26-5-generic
quiet
(...)
=====[/boot/grub/menu.lst]=====

If any more details are needed, please ask...

[Florin Ionut (florin8310)]

Updated to inteprid yesterday from Hoary. I now get a red screen with vertical white stripes all over it during boot and GDM won start (it just stays with those funky colours on it). I tried reinstalling usplash, installing v86d but to no avail. I'm booting the 2.6.26.5-generic kernel. I don't get any BIOS warnings.

[goto (gotolaunchpad)]

Update
=====

Same (almost) behaviour seen on another PC, with the following specs:
Hardware: AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+, 1GB RAM, nVidia 7800 GS AGP
Software: KUbuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex installed at Alpha 3, updated to latest via 'aptitude dist-upgrade'

Behaviour: screen goes blank after the "Starting up..." message, monitor enters power saving mode. It remains that way until kdm/Xorg loads up. There are no beeps because there is no PCSpeaker :) however sometimes the screen is corrupted instead (and the blue kubuntu logo can somewhat be discerened among the various flashing colours). Attempts to switch to the console result in either lock-ups, strange characters on the screen or a weird 40 column display. Once in a while text VT's actually work.

Interesting enough, after the latest updates, both this and my original system are able to properly display the usplash *on*shutdown* (i.e. after I select "turn off", the logo is seen breefly and everything seems fine).