Arch Linux

metamyst

Member

Registered: 2014-02-14

Posts: 4

Video doesn't work after recent upgrade

I upgrade my 7 year-old system (pacman -Syu) frequently. The most recent upgrade I did was about a week ago, maybe more. When I rebooted, the boot sequence appeared normal until the point at which the font size is reduced and the screen is refreshed. At this point, the screen became dark. After the hard disk stopped, I tried logging in blindly, and the hard disk seemed to respond but I was getting no visual feedback.

A few days ago, I created a bootable usb drive with Arch Linux installed, using the November 1 iso file. Same symptom.

Today, I created a bootable usb drive using the October 1 iso file. My system booted properly. I used arch-chroot to access the hard drive and downgraded my hard drive installation to October 1, then rebooted successfully.

Apparently, something affecting my video was altered during October. The output of lspci is:

01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] RS690M [Radeon Xpress 1200/1250/1270]

My video driver is:

xf86-video-ati 1:7.5.0-2

This seems to be the current version as of  2015-02-15, so the problem must be in some other package. Besides, the problem occurs before the X11 system starts.

Last edited by metamyst (2015-11-02 09:02:21)

olive

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2008-06-22

Posts: 1,490

Re: Video doesn't work after recent upgrade

The content of the Xorg log file could be useful. I have experienced a similar problem (though it is fine now) and in my case it was that Xorg started before the card was correctly initialized. A workaround was simply to delay the display manager for a few second:  put ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/sleep 5 in the [Service] section of /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service.  Anyway, boot in text mode (pass systemd.unit=multi-user.target to the kernel command line) and try to launch startx manually. If this works, it might very well be the problem I describe (because, while you login and type startx the card has enough time to initilize itself properly). Anyway doing so might give you clues about what the problem is (can you log in text mode? what happen precisely when you startx? what are the error message? what is the content of the log file?).

Also with an old laptop (with an intel card), it was a problem with an S-video output and the trick was to append video=SVIDEO-1:d to the kernel command line.

Last edited by olive (2015-11-02 09:26:01)

TheChickenMan

Member

From: United States

Registered: 2015-07-25

Posts: 354

Re: Video doesn't work after recent upgrade

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/46902

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If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.
Niels Bohr

metamyst

Member

Registered: 2014-02-14

Posts: 4

Re: Video doesn't work after recent upgrade

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/46902

That must be the same bug. Apparently it's in the linux kernel. Thanks.

Olive: thanks for responding, but I'm quite sure that the problem isn't with Xorg, because I don't start Xorg until after I login.

Last edited by metamyst (2015-11-02 11:20:47)

TheChickenMan

Member

From: United States

Registered: 2015-07-25

Posts: 354

Re: Video doesn't work after recent upgrade

https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/46902

That must be the same bug. Apparently it's in the linux kernel. Thanks.

Olive: thanks for responding, but I'm quite sure that the problem isn't with Xorg, because I don't start Xorg until after I login.

There's some issue with the RADEON video module in the current kernel (and the lts kernel).
I have heard that you can do a workaround by adding "nomodset" to your kernel command line but I have not tried this personally.

---

If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.
Niels Bohr

metamyst

Member

Registered: 2014-02-14

Posts: 4

Re: Video doesn't work after recent upgrade

The bug in the linux kernal that caused the video problem has been fixed in the current pacman update.
linux version  4.3.3-2