Gnome startup doesn't go through correctly on Gutsy

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Please include the information requested at [WWW] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingXAutoconfiguration as separate attachments.

this could be related to bug 133214, but without further information it's very hard to say.

Looks like a possible duplicate of bug 133214 indeed, as when I used Gutsy a while ago (I'm back on Feisty again now) Gnome wouldn't start except in failsafe mode too. (the failsafe GNOME session, not the failsafe boot mode).

Quoting the bugreporter of that bug:

"if i login of normal way the desktop doesn't load, then the login window appears again and when I type Ctrl + Alt + F1 the system is blocked, and only works Ctrl + Alt + Del"

For me, the system doesn't block with Ctrl-Alt-Del as only resort, because when I CTRL-ALT-F7, I am returned back to the GNOME screen trying to load again (though this still doesn't complete).

When I use CTRL-ALT-F1 to try to drop to the console, the top half of the screen gets "distorted", red stripes are shown on the top of the screen.
If I hit enter, or type a command to try to get output, I see the screen changing, though it is still distorted and unreadable.
As such, I am unable to attach any logfiles or outputs of commands.
If there is any possible workaround for this, while still getting useful output in the logfiles (if I try a failsafe mode, I assume I won't get any useful output in the log files, as these logfiles will not include the attempt to use what is currently failing) I'd be happy to try it out. Thanks for taking the time to look at this bug!

On a hunch, I tried booting to the Gutsy daily-live CD of today (Sat Sep 1 2007).
This did not solve the issue.
However, I then tried repeatedly tapping CTRL-ALT-F1 during boot as to get to a console, and then proceeded to stop GDM (sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop).
Then, I proceeded to remove the compiz-related packages and restarted GDM after doing a killall gdm just to be sure.
Surprisedly, I was this time greeted with a working desktop, however I had to start metacity myself for some reason.

This bug might possibly be related to Desktop Effects support detection?

Outputs:

sudo xpresprobe ati

id:
res: 1280x800
freq:
disptype: lcd/lvds

uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.22-10-generic #1 SMP Wed Aug 22 07:42:05 GMT 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux

sudo discover --disable=parallel,serial,usb,ide,scsi,pcmcia --format="%M\t%S\t%D\t%i\n" video

RS485 [Radeon Xpress 1100 IGP] XFree86 ati 10025975

Will follow up with Xorg config files and logs.

I know its not much help, but I have exactly the same laptop and have had the same problem. I looked around loads of forums for an answer but to no avail. Maybe its something to do with the xserver (i guess) as it fails to recognize the laptop screen properly, or do you think its Gnome/Compiz?

cheers

Hey,

seems I have a similar problem. The screen includes strange colours and strange patterns at both startup and shutdown. Because this patterns change each time, it seems that it dumps some arbitrary bytes to the screen.

Specs: Acer Aspire 5610 laptop, using GMA950 (incl. 915resolution).

Bart.

Bart, you have different hardware so it's unlikely that you had the same bug.

For everyone else, support for Gutsy ended some time ago. If this is still occurring on Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" please open a new bug.