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[Bug 841228] Ubuntu 9.04 gives black screen after splash, remote login shows hung/unkillable gdm instance

 

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to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments.
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** Changed in: gdm (Ubuntu)
       Status: Incomplete => Invalid

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/841228

Title:
  Ubuntu 9.04 gives black screen after splash, remote login shows
  hung/unkillable gdm instance

Status in “gdm” package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  This is an issue that was happening under a fresh Ubuntu 8.10 install,
  and it has continued to happen since a recent upgrade to 9.04. I'm
  opening this bug to help diagnose this issue and possibly develop both
  a workaround and a fix.

  The machine in question is an eMachines T2824, and I'm using the
  built-in graphics system that's part of the motherboard. 'lspci'
  reports it is an "Intel Corporation 8245G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset
  Integrated Graphics Device (rev 01)", with subsystem "Intel
  Corporation Device 5352".

  The problem that I am seeing is that, on a fair percentage of boots
  (around 40-50%), the machine appears to hang with a black screen
  immediately after the splash screen progress bar fills up. This
  happens before the background color is changed, the mouse cursor
  appears, or gdm comes up. The machine appears completely unresponsive
  at this point, and I cannot access alternate terminals via CTRL-ALT-#
  as might be expected.

  In order to help diagnose the problem, I have set up ssh-server so
  that I can remotely log into the machine while it is "hung". Remote
  login works perfectly normally when the screen is black, and
  inspecting the output of 'ps aux' shows two instances of /usr/sbin/gdm
  being executed.

  Attempts to restart gdm with 'sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart' do not work. At least one instance of gdm seems to be unresponsive to commands:
   - 'sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop'
   - 'sudo kill <PID of instance>'
   - 'sudo kill -9 <PID of instance>'

  In addition, remotely executing 'sudo shutdown -r now' fails to shut
  down the machine, and it must be powered off completely to try to
  restart.

  Some items to note:

  1) The hang seemed to be avoided every time I accessed the GRUB menu
  and overrode the 'quiet' and 'splash' options from the default boot
  menu entry, then booted. However, making the change permanent by
  adjusting /boot/grub/menu.lst has still resulted in at least one hang
  on a cold start.

  2) The hang also seemed to be avoided every time I accessed an
  alternate terminal during the splash screen. In these cases, the
  display switches to gdm when it is initialized, as would be expected.

  3) I'm not positive that gdm is the ultimate culprit here, but I am
  filing this bug against gdm because that is the program that appears
  unresponsive.

  4) This issue is not limited to cold boots. I have seen the same thing
  happen on warm restarts as well, and can be reliably reproduced by
  executing 'sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart' a few times successively.

  I'm not an expert, but I can certainly follow directions to gather
  more information about this problem. Please let me know what
  additional information you would like to help diagnose this issue.

  gdm version = 2.20.10-0ubuntu2
  lsb_release -rd = Ubuntu 9.04

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References