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Thread: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

  1. #1
    Join Date
    May 2013
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    8

    lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    Has anyone else seen the following issue?

    Clean install of Ubuntu 13.04 64-bit on a gazp8, with System76 driver version 3.2.7 installed immediately after the first reboot.

    Periodically, on first boot, lightdm will display a black screen and only the mouse cursor is visible. The cursor can be moved, and lightdm is fully fonctional. If I type in my password and hit Enter, I will be logged in. If I hit down and press enter, I will be logged in with the Guest account. I can work my way around this easily enough, but it confuses my kids.

    Once a first login has been successful, the problem does not seem to appear again. This happens once every 10 bootups, I would say.

    Looking around the log files in /var/log/lightdm, I do not see anything that stands out error-wise. I have reinstalled 3 times so far from clean media with correct checksums. The only thing I constantly do is install the System76 driver. I follow the documentation and select "Restore System", but not "Install Drivers".

    Running 'service lightdm restart' fixes the issue.

    I will keep a close eye on the timestamps in /var/log/lightdm the next time this occurs. I was just curious to know if any other system76 users are seeing this behaviour, with a gazp8 or other model.

    Thanks!
    Last edited by M4rduk; May 3rd, 2013 at 07:18 PM.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    May 2013
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    8

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    Happened again today, immediately after doing a Software Update that pulled down the following packages :

    Start-Date: 2013-05-02 18:52:44
    Commandline: aptdaemon role='role-commit-packages' sender=':1.183'
    Upgrade: linux-image-extra-3.8.0-19-generic:amd64 (3.8.0-19.29, 3.8.0-19.30), linux-headers-3.8.0-19:amd64 (3.8.0-19.29, 3.8.0-19.30), linux-image-3.8.0-19-generic:amd64 (3.8.0-19.29, 3.8.0-19.30), linux-headers-3.8.0-19-generic:amd64 (3.8.0-19.29, 3.8.0-19.30), linux-libc-dev:amd64 (3.8.0-19.29, 3.8.0-19.30)
    End-Date: 2013-05-02 18:53:19

    Nothing abnormal in /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log, x-0-greeter.log or x-0.log.

    I also changed my wallpaper right after the update, before rebooting. Since lightdm will display your wallpaper when you select your username, I'm wondering if the issue can be related to a wallpaper change. Will investigate further.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Dec 2009
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    Hidden!
    Distro
    Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    I haven't seen this on my gazp7, but I've probably rebooted it fewer than ten times since installing 13.04 so I may have been lucky so far. I am using a custom wallpaper. I will report back if this starts happening.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    May 2013
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    8

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    Quote Originally Posted by Carborundum View Post
    I haven't seen this on my gazp7, but I've probably rebooted it fewer than ten times since installing 13.04 so I may have been lucky so far. I am using a custom wallpaper. I will report back if this starts happening.
    Thanks!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    May 2013
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    8

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    Happened again this morning, no system updates or wallpaper changes had been executed prior to shutdown yesterday. So the issue is definitely not related to these two actions.

    No problems detected in /var/log/lightdm/*.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    May 2013
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    8

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    Just found this, which seems to be the same issue, although I definitely get a mouse cursor and can login if I just type my password.

    http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/ubunt...hen-using.html
    https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...dm/+bug/969489

    I will try adding a short sleep statement as described in the article and report back here in a few days.
    Last edited by M4rduk; May 5th, 2013 at 12:18 PM.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Suburbs of Chicago IL USA
    Beans
    3
    Distro
    Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    Hi M4rduk,

    You're not alone, and I appreciate you're figuring this out ahead of me. I ran into the same problem after upgrading to 13.04 from 12.10 on a gazp8. Tried the switch to gdm but without success (it changed over fine but after logging in the login screen wasn't "removed" and I couldn't see my desktop). Ultimately the sleep 2 line within my /etc/init.d/lightdm.conf just before the exec lightdm call is what has fixed it for now. I'll report back if I get any more issues or info on any better resolution. I would be interested in understanding how to further debug lightdm as well. I'm a fairly well versed programmer but haven't messed much in the linux source itself.

    https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LightDM

    it appears there's a --debug argument that can be passed that gives verbose logging, perhaps that will help to narrow down the issue.

    -Shaun

  8. #8
    Join Date
    May 2013
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    8

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    Hi, so far using a one second delay has solved it for me. I would go against using the debug option, as this will incur frequent writes to hard disk. That means more wear and tear on your hard drive / SSD drive and more battery drainage. From what I've seen, the race condition does not result in any noticeable errors even when running -debug.

    If anyone from System76 reads this, can you check into this? The latest driver states "fixed a LightDM race condition", that doesn't seem to work for 13.04.

    Thanks!
    Last edited by M4rduk; May 7th, 2013 at 05:26 PM.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2007
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    Aurora, CO
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    2,564
    Distro
    Ubuntu

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    It looks like we'll need to apply the fix for 13.04 as well. That was for 12.10.
    Ian Santopietro - System76 Technical Support.
    Open a Support Ticket!
    Ask a Sales Question!

  10. #10
    Join Date
    May 2013
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    8

    Re: lightdm blank screen on gazp8 + 13.04

    Quote Originally Posted by isantop View Post
    It looks like we'll need to apply the fix for 13.04 as well. That was for 12.10.
    Was the fix for 12.10 adding a small sleep delay to lightdm?

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