Screen goes blank on boot

YellowSnowIsBad · 2014-09-24 01:34:44

So when I boot up arch on my netbook the screen goes blank but the system continues to boot normally in the background - this happened after a long delayed update to my system. It happens round about the time when the resolution of the screen changes early in boot.

I initially thought it was an issue with Plymouth (which it isn't) but it has been removed from my system completely. I do remember several months ago messing around with framebuffer support but as far as I was concerned I reversed the changes. KVM was also disabled when I uninstalled Plymouth.

Here is the system journal: https://gist.github.com/anonymous/857628ab8ee1f9bef850

As you can see the system boots no problem.

I used an old Arch live CD to boot and get this log so I can only imagine that it's system specific configuration issue. What concerns me is that the screen blanks so early in boot and I can't even get a visible TTY session - so surely it can't be an issue with the onboard graphics card? I don't know.. That's why I'm here.

Thanks for any help.

logic_guy76 · 2014-09-24 05:56:12

I experienced the same problem after a recent system upgrade.

Add this file to your system:
/etc/X11/Xwrapper.config

allowed_users = anybody
needs_root_rights = no

(You may need to add "nomodeset" temporarily to the grub kernel load command in order to boot up and log in without the screen blanking so you can apply the above fix.)

YellowSnowIsBad · 2014-09-25 04:05:24

I booted from a live cd and made the changes but it didn't make a difference

I noticed that the screen blanks at this point:
Sep 24 02:08:55 arch-netbook systemd[1]: Started Load Kernel Modules.

berbae · 2014-09-25 09:22:15

You are affected by the i915 kernel module bug : https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/42036

YellowSnowIsBad · 2014-09-25 21:09:08

Hey, thanks guys, thanks berbae.. it turns out you were correct. I downgraded the kernel to a previous version I had in my cache.

I asume that the best way to track this bug would be to keep an eye on that ticket? Pardon my ignorance. Do you know if it's likely we will see a fix?

Thanks a lot.

Last edited by YellowSnowIsBad (2014-09-25 21:09:43)

berbae · 2014-09-26 12:27:12

It seems it will be fixed in the kernel update 3.16.4 or 3.17 soon to be released.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-09-24 01:34:44

Screen goes blank on boot

#2 2014-09-24 05:56:12

Re: Screen goes blank on boot

#3 2014-09-25 04:05:24

Re: Screen goes blank on boot

#4 2014-09-25 09:22:15

Re: Screen goes blank on boot

#5 2014-09-25 21:09:08

Re: Screen goes blank on boot

#6 2014-09-26 12:27:12

Re: Screen goes blank on boot

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