Graphics Resolution- Upgrade /Blank Screen after reboot

[Tronnie Dobbs]

Need help!

I am relatively new to Ubuntu -- started with 11.04. This was my first upgrade, so I was unaware that there could be so many problems with the online upgrade. I'll know better for next time.

Anyhow, I too have the blank purple screen on boot and, worst of all, my keyboard freezes as soon as I attempt to boot. I can't boot from LiveCD or USB, because I can't get to a menu to switch the 'boot from' option. I have reset the mobo a bunch of times, after which my keyboard can get me to the Boot Menu but, after that, it becomes useless again and just goes with the default choice after countdown, which causes a reboot and then, blank purple.

My keyboard is a wired USB, so there's no help to be had there. Eventually, I might find the problem to be with my nvidia GTS 450 graphics card, but I can't try booting without it, because I use an HDTV as my monitor and the GPU is the only thing that has the appropriate mini-USB cable connection.

Honestly, I don't even know where to start with this. It's been one week today since my machine went down and it's going to start negatively affecting my work very, very soon. Does anyone have even the slightest of notions of what to try first? Thanks in advance!!

[MAFoElffen]

Need help!

I am relatively new to Ubuntu -- started with 11.04. This was my first upgrade, so I was unaware that there could be so many problems with the online upgrade. I'll know better for next time.

Anyhow, I too have the blank purple screen on boot and, worst of all, my keyboard freezes as soon as I attempt to boot. I can't boot from LiveCD or USB, because I can't get to a menu to switch the 'boot from' option. I have reset the mobo a bunch of times, after which my keyboard can get me to the Boot Menu but, after that, it becomes useless again and just goes with the default choice after countdown, which causes a reboot and then, blank purple.

My keyboard is a wired USB, so there's no help to be had there. Eventually, I might find the problem to be with my nvidia GTS 450 graphics card, but I can't try booting without it, because I use an HDTV as my monitor and the GPU is the only thing that has the appropriate mini-USB cable connection.

Honestly, I don't even know where to start with this. It's been one week today since my machine went down and it's going to start negatively affecting my work very, very soon. Does anyone have even the slightest of notions of what to try first? Thanks in advance!!

Welcome to Ubuntu!

Wait a minute... Let me understand thsi. Did you say you had your USB keyboard plugged into your video card? Is your USB keyboard not plugged into an onboard USB port ffrom your motherboard nor an optional USB card?

It's not really a true graphics problem, rather a Keyboard problem. But heck, I'm game. It uses the same systems. Lookiing over your post, this is happening before Grub even comes into play (during BIOS Post), then when grub does show up and beyond.

Please answer the above questions first.

[Tronnie Dobbs]

No. I might be a noob, but I'm not that bad. The keyboard is plugged into the regular USB port from the mobo.

I made it confusing by talking about keyboard problems and the potential for GPU problems in the same paragraph. Sorry about that.

So, yeah. Keyboard is plugged in to where is supposed to be.

As far as the GRUB, I have to be honest and tell you that I don't really know what that is. I have to assume that it's the screen that I get post-BIOS, but there's nothing "menu" about it. It merely reads "Loading Operating System". Is this the screen I'm looking for?

[MAFoElffen]

No. I might be a noob, but I'm not that bad. The keyboard is plugged into the regular USB port from the mobo.

I made it confusing by talking about keyboard problems and the potential for GPU problems in the same paragraph. Sorry about that.

So, yeah. Keyboard is plugged in to where is supposed to be.

As far as the GRUB, I have to be honest and tell you that I don't really know what that is. I have to assume that it's the screen that I get post-BIOS, but there's nothing "menu" about it. It merely reads "Loading Operating System". Is this the screen I'm looking for?

Lets back up.
- First, is this a desktop? What brand and model? What Monitor? What Video card?

A USB or PS2 mouse should get recognized as an input device early in POST. If not, especially since you cleared the CMOS a few times, the BIOS setting for "Stop at Keyboard Error" would prevent it from continuing... It continues to boot to the Grub screen, where the input device probes inside Grub2 would check for a keyboard and it sort of sees a keyboard (enough to show a menu), goes through its timer and continues.

So, it sees it as an input device but not taking the input. Are you sure it's not an USB Controller problem or a keyboard problem. The way to check to see if it is just a controller problem is to use a USB/PS2 adapter and plug your keyboard into the PS2 keyboard connector of your motherboard (or use a PS2 keyboard) to try it... Testing the keyboard- Try on another box or try another keyboard.

You may be having other problems on your box- But am not going to do anything else about it until you have input to do anything about it. Thats sort of like your tied up and just there for an uncontrolled ride at the moment. I feel for you. I understand that the timing of this is never good... And that normal people don't have 15 keyboards, extra mother boards, cases, drives and such... (srevers, RAID towers, etc) laying around in their garage to use as extra parts.

There is things that bork the cache--> so that on reboot affect the video, mouse and keyboard... But things you have done would have clear that enough, that it would seem to boot normally until it hit that error condition again... So I think you already covered that.

Grub? Grub is like a very tiny basic Boot Management System. It really doesn't had enough features to be considered an Opearating System. Its strength is to be able to boot on many type of hardware, be able to setup menus to various operating systems and be able to boot them. It's a great go-between for a multi-boot system. For Linux, where the kernel versions change... etc.

[MAFoElffen]

Booting into a Text Console

Note: I've typed this out so many times, that I finally figured I just need to put this into it's own Post and Link to it from post 2 (Table Of Contents). Will update it as things change,

Here we go...
- At boot, hold down shift key, Grub Menu should come up...
- Press "e" key, that should put you into an edit mode.
- Arrow Down to the Line that starts with "linux", that is the kernel Boot line.
- Arrow Right to where is says "quiet splash vt.handoff=7"
- Replace that text with "--verbose single"
- Press <cntrl><x>, It will boot with those options.

That will boot into a TTY Text Console. Login.

[paulb42]

Hi MaFoElffen

Did you have any thoughts on my problem ? (post 689).
I posted my lspci output as requested but it probably got lost in the traffic.

I'm wondering if this is actually a graphics problem, or is it gdm? The plymouth splash displays perfectly, just the logon screen that doesn't appear.

I spotted the errors below in syslog, does this indicate that GDM is corrupted? I don't get the error in my working copy. Is it worth trying to reinstall GDM?

Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop gdm-simple-slave[1405]: CRITICAL: Error while compiling regular expression DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=(.+)#012DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=([0-9]+) at char 0: unknown option bit(s) set
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop gdm-simple-slave[1405]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop kernel: [   22.710116] gdm-simple-slav[1405]: segfault at 2ce85fc3 ip 00745a4f sp bf83f6ec error 4 in libc-2.11.1.so[6d2000+153000]
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop gdm-binary[926]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.970450 seconds
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop gdm-simple-slave[1436]: WARNING: Unable to load file '/etc/gdm/custom.conf': No such file or directory
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop acpid: client 1414[0:0] has disconnected
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop acpid: client 1414[0:0] has disconnected
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop acpid: client connected from 1445[0:0]
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop acpid: 1 client rule loaded
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop acpid: client connected from 1445[0:0]
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop acpid: 1 client rule loaded
Oct 24 09:21:50 paul-desktop gdm-simple-slave[1436]: CRITICAL: Error while compiling regular expression DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=(.+)#012DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=([0-9]+) at char 0: unknown option bit(s) set
Oct 24 09:21:50 paul-desktop gdm-simple-slave[1436]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed
Oct 24 09:21:50 paul-desktop kernel: [   23.722322] gdm-simple-slav[1436]: segfault at 2d3e9953 ip 00baea4f sp bfda307c error 4 in libc-2.11.1.so[b3b000+153000]
Oct 24 09:21:50 paul-desktop gdm-binary[926]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 1.011381 seconds
Oct 24 09:21:50 paul-desktop gdm-binary[926]: WARNING: GdmLocalDisplayFactory: maximum number of X display failures reached: check X server log for errors
Oct 24 09:21:50 paul-desktop init: gdm main process (926) terminated with status 1
Oct 24 09:21:52 paul-desktop kernel: [   25.704015] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
Oct 24 09:23:22 paul-desktop kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped.

Thanks for your valuable assistance
Paul

[bogan]

Hi, MAFoElffen, Its me, bogan, in trouble, again. Another long story, be patient.

With considerable help from you, I was running Vista in sda1, Ubuntu 10.04, 2.6.32-28 in sda6, and 11.04, 2.6.38-8 in sda8.
10.04 was fine, and 11.04 acceptable, except Startup Manager would not alter the default in the Grub menu, and occasional problems with WiFi connections.
Then Update Manager had problems in updating linux headers. I tried on several occasions but it gave error messages saying the header update could not be installed, something about dependencies.
Computer Shopper HelpFile said this was due to the mirror being used for the download, and to use the Edit menu of Software Centre to select Best Source and try again. I did this but with the same result though with a different header update. Finally in frustration I tried the offer of an update to Ubuntu 11.10. ----Disaster!!
During the install and at the end before going to CleanUp, it showed several error2 messages, two for Headers as before, one for GDMSetUp and one for GrubPC. It then opened a Ubuntu 11.10 screen with a window for entering a password and at the top right a Login Screen Icon - a relic I had set up in 11.04. Clicking this produced an error saying 'gdmSetUp no such file or folder'. When I entered my password it restarted with the Grub Menu as before, unchanged; but though Vista and 10.04 booted OK, 11.04 gave a black screen with no response.
I decided that I did not want the bother of mounting 11.04 from 10.04 as it almost certainly needed a reinstall - I thought.
So I updated 10.04. Unfortunately, in updating to header 2.6.32.34 it reinstalled the old Grub 1.98-1ubuntu12 so the grub menu is now in Low-Res white text on a black background, instead of gold on magenta.
Later I decided to look further into things and found if I selected the 11.04 recovery mode the black screen was responsive to Ctrl-Alt-F1&F2 giving me a Ubuntu11.10 welcome and a TTY prompt - not a login - and

sudo service gdm start

opened an 11.10 screen but with an 11.04 style login window.
Eventually ( before I saw your 715 Post ) I found that if I edited the 11.04 grub menu Linux/boot line to delete the 'vt.handoff=7' and added 'text', leaving in the 'VGA=795', after a thirty second black screen it booted directly into the graphics 11.10 login screen.
( Using the '--verbose single' edit you suggest in post715, gives several screens of text and a root prompt - not a login - from which

 service gdm start

opens a blank magenta screen with an 11.04 style login window.)
Most things seem to work OK, except for the login screen Icon, and there seems to be no way to create application Icons or Panels and Launchers with a right mouse click, as there was in 11.04. Running update-grub or Startup Manager showed not only 11.04 2.6.38-8 to be present but also 2.6.38-10, & -11 and also 11.10 3.0.0-12, though none of these show in the grub menu. Edit: After a cold reboot into 10.04 and running update-grub several times, the above entries now show on the grub menu; but 3.0.0-12 only gives a black screen with a small flashing cursor.
What do you advise?, is it worth persevering with this, reinstalling GDMSetUp, Grub2 and GrubPC? Would I need to purge all the false headers and reinstall them?
Edit: See note above, ( How can I get past the need to edit the Grub menu entry? Using gedit to alter /etc/default/grub has no effect.) No longer applies!
Chao! bogan.

[bogan]

Hi! MAKoFlffen. The Plot thickens.
I ran update manager from 11.10 2.6.38-8, and it carried out a partial update which restored Grub2 v 1.99 but deleted all the versions of header 11.04 2.6.38=xx from the grub menu.
3.0.0-12 boots, as before, to a text login prompt, but then "sudo service gdm start" only gives a black screen with a small flashing cursor.
3.0.0-12 recovery boots to a black screen, Ctrl=Alt-F2 gives a text login prompt but then "sudo service gdm start" does nothing only says its process number. Ctrl=Alt-F7 gives a half screen of text hanging at "*Checking Battery state".
This is so whether the Linux /boot text is set to 'VGA=795 text' or to '--verbose single', that only determines if it gives a login prompt or a root prompt, or goes direct to the black screen and flashing cursor.
So I am now in a worse state than ever.
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Chao! bogan.

[MAFoElffen]

Hi MaFoElffen

Did you have any thoughts on my problem ? (post 689).
I posted my lspci output as requested but it probably got lost in the traffic.

I'm wondering if this is actually a graphics problem, or is it gdm? The plymouth splash displays perfectly, just the logon screen that doesn't appear.

I spotted the errors below in syslog, does this indicate that GDM is corrupted? I don't get the error in my working copy. Is it worth trying to reinstall GDM?

Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop gdm-simple-slave[1405]: CRITICAL: Error while compiling regular expression DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=(.+)#012DBUS_SESSION_BUS_PID=([0-9]+) at char 0: unknown option bit(s) set
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop gdm-simple-slave[1405]: GLib-CRITICAL: g_regex_match_full: assertion `regex != NULL' failed
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop kernel: [   22.710116] gdm-simple-slav[1405]: segfault at 2ce85fc3 ip 00745a4f sp bf83f6ec error 4 in libc-2.11.1.so[6d2000+153000]
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop gdm-binary[926]: WARNING: GdmDisplay: display lasted 0.970450 seconds
Oct 24 09:21:49 paul-desktop gdm-simple-slave[1436]: WARNING: Unable to load file '/etc/gdm/custom.conf': No such file or directory

Thanks for your valuable assistance
Paul

There's a few things this could be... I'll try to cover all this based.

First, just in case, we will reinstall GDM:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall gdm

GDM said it had varios problems. One was that it couldn't find one of it's own files.

Then to cover any possible conflicting modules and straighten out the loading order:

echo RUN+="/sbin/modprobe nvidia" > /etc/udev/rules.d/90-modprobe.rules
echo options nouveau modeset=0 > /etc/modprobe.d/nouveau-kms.conf
sudo update-initramfs -u

Which would if it did have module order loading problems, it would show up about this time in the X-Session.

It also had errors on BUS Address and BusID. I noticed that your xorg.conf didn't have the BusID in it. When it is, it can help point to a particular card and specific GPU. Without it, it is usaully fine- but sometimes it "can" get lost and confused. If you add the highlighted line to the device section of your xorg.conf (from info from your lspci output):

Section "Device"     
    Identifier       "Device0"     
    Driver           "nvidia"     
    VendorName "NVIDIA Corporation" 
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
EndSection

Try those changes and tell me if they helped.

[MAFoElffen]

Hi! MAKoFlffen. The Plot thickens.
I ran update manager from 11.10 2.6.38-8, and it carried out a partial update which restored Grub2 v 1.99 but deleted all the versions of header 11.04 2.6.38=xx from the grub menu.
3.0.0-12 boots, as before, to a text login prompt, but then "sudo service gdm start" only gives a black screen with a small flashing cursor.
3.0.0-12 recovery boots to a black screen, Ctrl=Alt-F2 gives a text login prompt but then "sudo service gdm start" does nothing only says its process number. Ctrl=Alt-F7 gives a half screen of text hanging at "*Checking Battery state".
This is so whether the Linux /boot text is set to 'VGA=795 text' or to '--verbose single', that only determines if it gives a login prompt or a root prompt, or goes direct to the black screen and flashing cursor.
So I am now in a worse state than ever.
Any suggestions gratefully received.
Chao! bogan.

The continuing saga...

Bogan,

1. Please help us both out. Stop making changes until we can get a clear picture of where you are at and what is wrong. It;s very hard to do that if you are making changes, (good or bad) and tell me about them past-tense... and that picture keeps changing.

2. When explaining a problem, this time- Please remain focused, concise, yet brief. It;s hard to weed through a page of varied details. I know you want to be thorough. All that mass quantity on so many varied things tends to confuse me and lose me. I then get sidetracked answering and tracking down things that don't get you quickly to resolving your problem.

3. I promise to try to be focused, concise and brief with your. Lets try to find your problem and get you back working.

So, remember this question? --> What is ypur chief complaint? What does your computer do? On boot, how far does it get before it locks up?

Please post the output of

lspci -vnn | grep VGA

And please post your /var/log/xorg.0.log file. Remember to post it within code tags.