Ubuntu
xorg package

No "safe" fallback on broken xorg.conf or missing driver

Bug #457443 reported by Steve Beattie on 2009-10-21

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #441638: upstart job keeps restarting a dying gdm. Edit Remove

This bug affects 1 person

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	xorg (Ubuntu)	Triaged	Medium	Bryce Harrington

Bug Description

Binary package hint: xorg

Post jaunty->karmic upgrade, X fails to start (repeatedly, thanks to gdm). Note that this is subtly different than bug 439551; in that bug, a zero length xorg.conf was the cause of the failure. Whatever was causing xorg.conf to get truncated to nothing has been fixed (though X probably still handles an empty file poorly); in this case there looks to be a valid xorg.conf (see attached), but X is still failing to start, due to the vboxvideo module not being found (the guest tools/drivers are not installed), and not falling back to use VESA.

Removing /etc/X11/xorg.conf entirely, makes everything start working, I've attached the Xorg.0.log from that as well.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Oct 21 08:47:12 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Lsusb: Error: command ['lsusb'] failed with exit code 1:
MachineType: innotek GmbH VirtualBox
Package: xorg 1:7.4+3ubuntu7
PciDisplay:
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: InnoTek Systemberatung GmbH VirtualBox Graphics Adapter [80ee:beef]
  Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
  Status: Cap- 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
  Latency: 0
  Region 0: Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=16M]
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=853b5c5a-f33c-48b3-8932-ed0df7a8e9d6 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
xserver-xorg 1:7.4+3ubuntu7
libgl1-mesa-glx 7.6.0-1ubuntu4
libdrm2 2.4.14-1ubuntu1
xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.9.0-1ubuntu2
xserver-xorg-video-ati 1:6.12.99+git20090929.7968e1fb-0ubuntu1
SourcePackage: xorg
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
XsessionErrors:
(gnome-settings-daemon:2923): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
(gnome-settings-daemon:2923): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
(gnome-panel:2951): libglade-WARNING **: Unexpected element <requires-version> inside <glade-interface>.
dmi.bios.date: 12/01/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: innotek GmbH
dmi.bios.version: VirtualBox
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvninnotekGmbH:bvrVirtualBox:bd12/01/2006:svninnotekGmbH:pnVirtualBox:pvr1.2:
dmi.product.name: VirtualBox
dmi.product.version: 1.2
dmi.sys.vendor: innotek GmbH
fglrx: Not loaded
system:
distro: Ubuntu
architecture: x86_64kernel: 2.6.31-14-generic
xkbcomp:
Error: command ['xkbcomp', ':0', '-w0', '-'] failed with exit code 1: Error: Cannot open display ":0"
                   Exiting

Tags:

Revision history for this message

Steve Beattie (sbeattie) wrote on 2009-10-21:

Xorg.0.log from working session after deleting xorg.conf Edit (37.1 KiB, text/plain)
BootDmesg.txt Edit (22.8 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
CurrentDmesg.txt Edit (1.2 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
Dependencies.txt Edit (4.9 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
Lspci.txt Edit (3.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcCpuinfo.txt Edit (585 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcInterrupts.txt Edit (978 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
ProcModules.txt Edit (1.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
UdevDb.txt Edit (54.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
UdevLog.txt Edit (124.4 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
XorgConf.txt Edit (1.0 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
XorgLog.txt Edit (4.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
XorgLogOld.txt Edit (4.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
Xrandr.txt Edit (8.5 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
glxinfo.txt Edit (16.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
setxkbmap.txt Edit (233 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
xdpyinfo.txt Edit (19.2 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")

Brian Murray (brian-murray) on 2009-10-22

Changed in xorg (Ubuntu):
assignee:	nobody → Canonical Desktop Team (canonical-desktop-team)

Bryce Harrington (bryce) on 2009-10-22

Changed in xorg (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Confirmed

Revision history for this message

Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote on 2009-10-29:

So the cause is pretty clear:

(II) LoadModule: "vboxvideo"
(WW) Warning, couldn't open module vboxvideo
(II) UnloadModule: "vboxvideo"
(EE) Failed to load module "vboxvideo" (module does not exist, 0)
(EE) No drivers available.

In earlier times, gdm/X.org used to have a fallback mechanism to VESA. Perhaps it should just entirely ignore xorg.conf if it is faulty? Bryce, do you think the latter option would be suitable, also for upstream?

Changed in xorg (Ubuntu):
importance:	Undecided → Medium
assignee:	Canonical Desktop Team (canonical-desktop-team) → Bryce (bryce)
status:	Confirmed → Triaged
assignee:	Bryce (bryce) → Bryce Harrington (bryceharrington)
summary:	- X fails in virtualbox post jaunty->karmic upgrade + No "safe" fallback on broken xorg.conf
summary:	- No "safe" fallback on broken xorg.conf + No "safe" fallback on broken xorg.conf or missing driver

Revision history for this message

Steve Beattie (sbeattie) wrote on 2009-10-29: Re: [Bug 457443] Re: X fails in virtualbox post jaunty->karmic upgrade

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 11:02:52AM -0000, Martin Pitt wrote:
> So the cause is pretty clear:
>
> (II) LoadModule: "vboxvideo"
> (WW) Warning, couldn't open module vboxvideo
> (II) UnloadModule: "vboxvideo"
> (EE) Failed to load module "vboxvideo" (module does not exist, 0)
> (EE) No drivers available.
>
> In earlier times, gdm/X.org used to have a fallback mechanism to VESA.
> Perhaps it should just entirely ignore xorg.conf if it is faulty? Bryce,
> do you think the latter option would be suitable, also for upstream?

I think falling back would be smart, but would it also be possible
for jockey to recommend installing virtualbox-ose-guest-x11 to get
the vboxvideo driver?

--
Steve Beattie
<email address hidden>
http://NxNW.org/~steve/

Revision history for this message

Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote on 2009-10-29:

Steve Beattie [2009-10-29 12:45 -0000]:
> I think falling back would be smart, but would it also be possible
> for jockey to recommend installing virtualbox-ose-guest-x11 to get
> the vboxvideo driver?

It wouldn't help for this particular problem, since you need X for
jockey.

However, it does sound like a good idea anyway. Can you please open a
new jockey bug about this? Please assign it to me, jockey bugs are a
mess right now.
--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)

Revision history for this message

Steve Beattie (sbeattie) wrote on 2009-10-29:

On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 03:12:49PM -0000, Martin Pitt wrote:
> It wouldn't help for this particular problem, since you need X for
> jockey.

Actually, there is a command line version of jockey -- I've had to use
it when the open source drivers didn't cope well with the hardware I've
got. For this specific issue, however, if you've got access to a shell
(and gdm restarting repeatedly isn't preventing you from typing into
it), the easiest thing to do is to just delete the xorg.conf entirely;
then X will come up in VESA mode quite happily.

That's the other weird aspect to this bug that ought to be fixed
is X's differing behavior around a mildly bogus xorg.conf versus a
non-existent one.

> However, it does sound like a good idea anyway. Can you please open a
> new jockey bug about this? Please assign it to me, jockey bugs are a
> mess right now.

Bug 463464 opened, thanks.

--
Steve Beattie
<email address hidden>
http://NxNW.org/~steve/

Revision history for this message

Bryce Harrington (bryce) wrote on 2009-11-03:

Fwiw, the underlying issue for this one was not that xorg.conf was invalid but rather (I guess) that the vboxvideo was not present on the system (or was not installed or loading properly):

(EE) Failed to load module "vboxvideo" (module does not exist, 0)