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IronManRust

Member

From: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Registered: 2018-07-05

Posts: 13

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[SOLVED] X Startup Failure After System Update

I need some help troubleshooting an Xorg / XFCE issue my system has developed after doing a full (pacman -Syu) update this morning.

Hardware-wise I have a pair of NVidia GeForce GT 620 cards each driving a pair of monitors (four total).

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/xorg.conf

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen      1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
    Screen      2  "Screen2" RightOf "Screen1"
    Screen      3  "Screen3" RightOf "Screen2"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "1"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "Module"
    Load           "dbe"
    Load           "extmod"
    Load           "type1"
    Load           "freetype"
    Load           "glx"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Dell"
    ModelName      "Dell 1908FP"
    HorizSync       31.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 76.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Dell"
    ModelName      "Dell 1907FP"
    HorizSync       31.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 76.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor2"
    VendorName     "Dell"
    ModelName      "Dell 1908FP"
    HorizSync       31.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 76.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor3"
    VendorName     "Dell"
    ModelName      "Dell 1908FP"
    HorizSync       31.0 - 83.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 76.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GT 620"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          0
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GT 620"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          1
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device2"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GT 620"
    BusID          "PCI:2:0:0"
    Screen          0
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device3"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GT 620"
    BusID          "PCI:2:0:0"
    Screen          1
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "nvidiaXineramaInfoOrder" "CRT-0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DVI-I-0: 1280x1024_60 +0+0 {AllowGSYNC=Off}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "Off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Device1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DVI-I-1: 1280x1024_60 +0+0 {AllowGSYNC=Off}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "Off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen2"
    Device         "Device2"
    Monitor        "Monitor2"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DVI-I-0: 1280x1024_60 +0+0 {AllowGSYNC=Off}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "Off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen3"
    Device         "Device3"
    Monitor        "Monitor3"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "Stereo" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DVI-I-1: 1280x1024_60 +0+0 {AllowGSYNC=Off}"
    Option         "SLI" "Off"
    Option         "MultiGPU" "Off"
    Option         "BaseMosaic" "Off"
    SubSection     "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option         "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

After pacman finished and I rebooted, instead of taking me to the XFCE login prompt, I ended up stuck at the initial terminal.  Switching to tty2 (or 3/4/5/6) works fine and, after digging through various logs, I made some progress.

I had previously been using the main-line NVidia drivers but in troubleshooting discovered that since my last update my GPUs have been demoted to the legacy drivers.  No problem, I think, and swap out nvidia-390xx for nvidia and nvidia-390xx-utils for nvidia-utils.  However, while this changes the errors, still no XFCE.

Just for fun in tty2 I switched the xorg.conf drivers from nvidia to nouveau but after rebooting that didn't help things.  I switched to tty2 to change them back to nvidia, but after saving and before rebooting XFCE appeared.

Confused, I tried to replicate the scenario, and it seems to be consistent.

• Set the four xorg.conf driver settings to nvidia, XFCE fails to start

• Set the four xorg.conf driver settings to nouveau, XFCE fails to start

• Set the four xorg.conf driver settings to nouveau, XFCE fails to start, change the config back to nvidia over tty2, XFCE starts automatically (presumably as it is in a restart loop)

This leads me to believe that my config is still good, and other than the driver line flip-flops, is identical to a backup I made before the upgrade.

I have no idea what would make this behavior happen.  Help?  Your choice of grep'd logs available upon request.

Last edited by IronManRust (2018-07-06 00:48:14)

IronManRust

Member

From: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Registered: 2018-07-05

Posts: 13

Website

Re: [SOLVED] X Startup Failure After System Update

I figured it out.  It seems that post-upgrade the xorg.conf file stopped finding the appropriate "NVidia" glx driver and reverted to the "X.org Foundation" one.  I just had to add the following line to the Files section:

/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/xorg.conf

Section "Files"
    ModulePath     "/usr/lib/nvidia/xorg"
EndSection

I'm not sure why the nouveau dance did anything, and was clearly a red herring.  Too bad that took me so long to find ...

Last edited by IronManRust (2018-07-06 00:52:52)