artifacts near the end of usplash boot

Same behaviour on my HP/Compaq nc6220.

Confirmed on a 5 year old (or something like that) Compaq thing with Celeron 500 mHz processor and Intel Extreme embedded graphics.

It happens before the usplash when turning off, and it happens after the usplash when turning on.

Sorry, can't figure out how to edit my comment.

This is also happening to me when logging out, giving me reason to believe that the problem perhaps has something to with the login screen.
Can anyone getting the first symptom confirm that it happens when logging out as well?

For my part, the problem only appears when resuming from hibernation.

I also get that distorted image when logging out of gnome, right before gdm shows up. I get just the same image as is shown in all the virtual terminals (see https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/usplash/+bug/63558). Removing "splash" in grub's menu.lst stops this from happening both places.
Thinkpad with AtiX1400, fglrx drivers.

I noticed something today after messing up xorg.conf!

Instead of being dumped into a terminal, the following occurred:
-I was given about 5 seconds of the described weird effect.

-Screen went blank for a moment (half a second?)
-I was then given more of that glitch, this time with a distinct greenish colour with some blue sparkles. This time it lasted about 3 seconds then jumped back to the blank screen and it all repeated infinitely.

At this point, I knew I had a lead. Then I tried something I rarely do: Ctrl+Alt+F5 (or whatever that combination is to switch to another virtual terminal). This brought me to the continual scrolling messy glitchy thing! (It's really quite simple, Watson).

As I recall, Ubuntu's startup / shutdown procedure is not quite seemless; at many instances, the terminal will pop up for a moment while something is sorted out. This is especially noticeable on a slower computer such as mine.
I also realized that, since I've been encountering this bug, I haven't seen much of that terminal...

Therefore, I suggest that this bug is actually the terminal not rendering correctly.

There seem to be a few exceptions, though:
When using Hibernate (my computer doesn't get powered off automatically, by the way), I am able to read quite clearly at the end of that process "Power down" on a text terminal.
Perhaps another process is interfering with the terminal when everything is loaded, thus causing this to not happen when everything is closed down?

More things I've noticed:
When I start up (and perhaps at other times), the artifacts seem to display bits and pieces from the Human theme, or perhaps the login screen being loaded. I will try to capture a video of this, though my eyes may just be deceiving me. The artifacts are definietly distinctly orange (most of the time) and may contain distinct images.
Perhaps this is all left over in VRAM.
Random question: Does anyone else here have a video card that uses shared RAM?

*Oops*
I guess this means I am confirming the above bug #63558

Also a suggestion: Since this bug is making it impossible to use virtual consoles for some users, thus rendering the system potentially very difficult to recover if something goes wrong, this bug should be considered slightly higher priority than a mere asthetic thing.

Finally, anyone in disagreement that this is a dupe of #63558 ?

I've got a video of this in the works. I'll probably redo it, though, because it is enormous and without commentary.
Currently using the latest kernel with Feisty, and it is still happening.

For now, I'll describe another chunk of this which I have noticed.
If I switch to another virtual terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F2, for example), the weird graphics thing happens. However, as I suspected but never bothered to check, I can still blindly operate the terminal! If I enter my login details, I log in (and it is, err, logged in the system log). Then I can type out a command such as:
echo "I can not see!!!" > /home/dmccall/Desktop/F2
Then if I go back to Ctrl+Alt+F7, I will see that file appear on my desktop.

I've also noticed that sometimes while shutting down (and I'm still trying to find a pattern; I think it may have to be done via the terminal), the weird glitch happens for a very long time. Eventually it stops happening, and I am shown the usplash with an almost finished progress bar.
I am going to run a shutdown without the usplash to find out exactly when the glitching stops happening, which should help to figure this thing out.

After a bit more experimenting with this bug (I'm growing accustomed to it now; I'll probably be depressed when it's fixed!), I've noticed that there are actually a big number of bug reports here which mention particular moments of the symptoms. I believe that all of those bugs are directly connected to this one, and, thus, are dupes. I can't be sure until someone else confirms some of my things, though.
I guess someone should create a single master bug because at the moment my findings are completely different from the original bug report.
Maybe I will once I have those videos sorted...

Okay, I need to ask a favour.

In bug #67443 , Thom Pischke (sorry I just called you by your last name, by the way, if you're reading this!) fixed a problem which I had a hunch was related to this one, in which progress bars were not displaying.
The fix for that also managed to fix this!

So, I ask that, if you are encountering this problem, you please try adjusting your DefaultDepth in /etc/X11/xorg.conf. Try lowering it to 16 first, and then restart X and see if anything has changed.
Hopefully it has, in which case both this bug and #67443 can probably be considered the same issue...
Perhaps a feature request could be filed: Ubuntu could check if current graphics options are suited to the driver in use, and pop up a warning if they are not. That way, if someone ends up with the wrong DefaultDepth, they can find and fix the problem immediately. (Assuming that sort of check is possible).

This does not happen anymore, at least with feisty.

Close me.

According to AJ Slater comment, I will close this bug report. Thanks to everybody who contributed to ubuntu through this bug report, feel free to report any other bugs you might find.