Plymouth does not display bootsplash

Just spotted the "Error: command ['readlink', '/etc/alternatives/text.plymouth'] failed with exit code 1" error in the above output. Is having a text theme installed mandatory?

Please boot with plymouth debugging turned on and forward the resulting /var/log/boot.log.

Please find attached the requested boot.log file.

In the meantime I also figured out a workaround: Adding the following Kernel boot parameters enables Plymouth to correctly display the graphical splash:

nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=1024x600-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap

This workaround was *not* active during the boot that resulted in the attached log.

ah - could you also attach /var/log/plymouth-debug.log, please?

Sure. I noticed that the log points out a missing /lib/plymouth/renderers/x11.so, which is indeed not present in the initrd image although it is present in /lib/plymouth/renderers/ on the rootfs.

The x11.so message is irrelevant; we never want to be using the x11 renderer in the initramfs anyway.

The key section of the log is this:

[./plugin.c] create_backend:creating renderer backend for device /dev/dri/card0
[./plugin.c] load_driver:Attempting to load driver 'i915'
[ply-terminal.c] ply_terminal_open:trying to open terminal '/dev/tty7'
[ply-terminal.c] ply_terminal_look_up_geometry:looking up terminal text geometry
[ply-terminal.c] ply_terminal_look_up_geometry:terminal is now 80x25 text cells
[./plugin.c] query_device:Could not initialize heads
[ply-renderer.c] ply_renderer_open:could not query rendering device for plugin /lib/plymouth/renderers/drm.so
[./plugin.c] close_device:closing device
[./plugin.c] unload_driver:unloading driver
[./ply-renderer-i915-driver.c] destroy_driver:uninitializing intel buffer manager
[./plugin.c] create_backend:creating renderer backend for device /dev/fb0
[./plugin.c] open_device:could not open '/dev/fb0': No such file or directory

So both the drm and fb renderers are failing at this point.

This could be a race condition in /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/init-top/framebuffer. Could you try adding 'sleep 1' to the bottom of this script, run 'sudo update-initramfs -u', and check whether that fixes the problem?

Added sleep, regenerated the initrd, re-enabled plymouth:debug, updated grub. Unfortunately, the issue is still unchanged. Even the plymouth-debug.log file is 100% identical to the one I attached to this bug (except for the timestamp).

Oh, very interesting. I would expect a 1 second delay to be sufficient, if this is a race condition.

Can you post the output of 'zcat /boot/initrd.img-$(uname -r) | cpio -t'? Also, please try booting with 'break=modules' and when you get a shell prompt, check whether /dev/fb0 is present - and if not, whether it shows up after a few seconds of waiting.

When booting with break=modules, /dev/fb0 is present (29, 0). However, I just noticed that when booting I noticed a message that may be related and shows up after grub, but before any plymouth message shows up:

mknod: /dev/fb0: File exists

Probably just cosmetic, but I thought I'd mention it.

After booting with break=modules and finding /dev/fb0 is there, does continuing the boot with Ctrl-D bring up the splash screen, or not?

The contents of the initramfs all look sensible, so a race condition still seems the most likely problem here.

Unfortunately, the splash does not show up after exiting the initramfs shell (although /dev/fb0 was present at that time): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Oky8d-flQ

On the other hand, when an fsck happens during boot, the bootsplash becomes visible as soon as the fsck starts: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axku13oUwu0

I have the same issue, also Kubuntu, also Intel, but GMA 950

Ok, mine was https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/plymouth/+bug/571678 sorry for the noise.

That version has died long ago; no more supported