Bug 877204 - black screen after grub on 3.6.6-1.fc16.i686 whereas 3.4.11 boots ok
Summary: black screen after grub on 3.6.6-1.fc16.i686 whereas 3.4.11 boots ok
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED NOTABUG
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: 16
Hardware: i686
OS: Linux
unspecified
medium
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Kernel Maintainer List
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2012-11-15 23:20 UTC by rmknox
Modified: 2012-11-26 14:54 UTC (History)
7 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-11-26 14:54:12 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
photo of screen when it hangs (397.55 KB, image/jpeg)
2012-11-20 14:34 UTC, rmknox
no flags Details

Description rmknox 2012-11-15 23:20:32 UTC
User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686) AppleWebKit/537.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/21.0.1180.89 Safari/537.1
Build Identifier: 

f16 - has been running ok
starting today the boot will not complete on 3.6.6-1.fc16.i686
after grub - cursor in top left corner - never turns into a busy symbol or  pointer cursor
if instead i pick the prior grub choice 3.4.11 - boots ok

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.boot 
2.allow grub to pick first entry which is 3.6.6-1.fc16.i686
3.sits forever with cursor at top left corner
4. alternatively if tell grub to boot prior version - 3.4.11-1.fc16.i686 it boots ok
Actual Results:  
see above

Expected Results:  
see above

I believe I made a change to the on line account settings
I don't know what on line accounts mean and have not found an explanation
anyway it lists Google and i left that alone but told it i did not want any of the google services -- I have no idea whether the above is significant - it is the only thing I can think of that I may have done that is out of the ordinary

If I managed to get it running I would use dmesg to see what the system logged during the start up that does not complete

if there is a command that allows me to access the log file from a prior startup - i would be  happy to supply it to you

Comment 1 robledo 2012-11-16 21:59:16 UTC
I installed Fedora 17 from live CD, with kernel 3.3.4-5, and all worked well.

Ran updates, and system automatically installed kernel 3.6.6-1.

When booting up using kernel 3.3.4-1, boot up okay, no issues.
When booting up using kernel 3.6.6-1 4 out of 5 chance of fail/freeze, with blank screen, no fedora logo coming up.  For every 5 boots, the pc does successfully boot using kernel 3.6.6-1 and operation seems normal.

I have proceeded to uninstall all kernel 3.6.6-1 related files and I manually installed 
kernel-3.6.6-3.fc18.x86_64.rpm, 
kernel-devel..., 
kernel-headers... and 
kernel-modules-extra...  
all from 3.6.6-3.fc18.x86_64.rpm

and boot up does work well.

Comment 2 robledo 2012-11-17 00:44:00 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> I installed Fedora 17 from live CD, with kernel 3.3.4-5, and all worked well.
> 
> Ran updates, and system automatically installed kernel 3.6.6-1.
> 
> When booting up using kernel 3.3.4-1, boot up okay, no issues.
> When booting up using kernel 3.6.6-1 4 out of 5 chance of fail/freeze, with
> blank screen, no fedora logo coming up.  For every 5 boots, the pc does
> successfully boot using kernel 3.6.6-1 and operation seems normal.
> 
> I have proceeded to uninstall all kernel 3.6.6-1 related files and I
> manually installed 
> kernel-3.6.6-3.fc18.x86_64.rpm, 
> kernel-devel..., 
> kernel-headers... and 
> kernel-modules-extra...  
> all from 3.6.6-3.fc18.x86_64.rpm
> 
> and boot up does work well.

It seems that the first few tries were lucky with kernel 3.6.6-3.  Now same boot problems.  I have a feeling it is due to display drivers failing with that newer kernel.  ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830 Series

Comment 3 robledo 2012-11-17 01:26:18 UTC
This appears to be duplicate of https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=845745

Comment 4 rmknox 2012-11-17 05:10:30 UTC
1) system ran fine - and then stopped running fine - same kernel unless it is automagically updated without my knowledge

2) here is info from a good start on older version of kernel - merely to demonstrate that I have nvidia hardware and the 304.37 driver installed via yum 


[knox@knox ~]$ dmesg | grep -i nvidia
[    0.000000] Nvidia board detected. Ignoring ACPI timer override.
[    8.995164] input: HDA NVidia Line as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/sound/card0/input5
[    8.995260] input: HDA NVidia Front Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/sound/card0/input6
[    8.995333] input: HDA NVidia Rear Mic as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/sound/card0/input7
[    8.995405] input: HDA NVidia Front Headphone as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/sound/card0/input8
[    8.995476] input: HDA NVidia Line Out Side as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/sound/card0/input9
[    8.995544] input: HDA NVidia Line Out CLFE as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/sound/card0/input10
[    8.995611] input: HDA NVidia Line Out Surround as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/sound/card0/input11
[    8.995682] input: HDA NVidia Line Out Front as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:09.0/sound/card0/input12
[    9.716270] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel.
[    9.773250] nvidia 0000:00:10.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    9.773474] nvidia 0000:00:10.0: setting latency timer to 64
[    9.774077] NVRM: loading NVIDIA UNIX x86 Kernel Module  304.37  Wed Aug  8 19:50:16 PDT 2012
[knox@knox ~]$ 

i will research how to change command file for grub so we can see what is happening during the boot - unless someone wants to tell me how to do that - in which case i would be much obliged

and for what its worth - ctrl alt delete acts the same as shutdown now - ie it breaks out of whatever process is holding it and displays the normal shutdown messages

Comment 5 rmknox 2012-11-17 14:52:15 UTC
to clarify -- 3.6.6 was booting ok
its last successful boot it complained about the "online accounts"
as I recall red error message at bottom of screen
i had changed the settings on the "online accounts"
google was selected but all features were turned off

Comment 6 rmknox 2012-11-17 19:47:03 UTC
further clarification
I may have used the wrong term when I said "black screen" after grub
In fact I have output - an underscore cursor flashing at about 4x per sec at the top left corner
The problem is that it does not progress to show anything else
and when I type ctrl alt del I get the normal "shutdown now" output

Comment 7 rmknox 2012-11-18 15:27:05 UTC
humm -
I see in /boot that the file intrafms-3.6.6-1.fc16.i686.img is dated 11/14 - the day before I reported this problem

per Nautilus
initramfs-3.6.6-1.fc16.i686.img
Wed 14 Nov 2012 08:34:44 PM PST

I dont recall taking any action that would change the system the day before I reported the problem. Perhaps I have a parameter set to automatically update the kernel ? Maybe I left my system on overnight and received an update without my knowledge? In any case, I am now not sure that I had prior experience on 3.6.6.

Comment 8 rmknox 2012-11-20 14:34:05 UTC
Created attachment 648538 [details]
photo of screen when it hangs

note 6 lines up from the bottom "Ignored nvidia-kmod as it failed earlier"

I don't pretend to fully understand the implication

If you like I can tell you how I installed the nvidia driver

I used a process that was supposed to make it available to future kernels

Comment 9 rmknox 2012-11-20 14:36:00 UTC
this is the first time a new kernel was installed after i installed the nvidia driver

Comment 10 rmknox 2012-11-23 03:15:25 UTC
Found the Problem and Fixed it!

the fix was sudo yum install akmod-nvidia* nvidia*

Process

I asked yum to show me all the things that needed to be updated

The list included akmod-nvidia* and also nvidia*

Since my screen shot showed that the system complained about missing nvidia-kmod I reasoned that this was a dependency that was overlooked in the installation of the Kernel - so I used yum to get these items and  guess what

It boots ok!

Comment 11 rmknox 2012-11-25 07:16:34 UTC
[knox@knox ~]$  rpm -qai kmod-nvidia-$(uname -r)
Name        : kmod-nvidia-3.6.6-1.fc16.i686
Epoch       : 1
Version     : 304.60
Release     : 1.fc16.2
Architecture: i686
Install Date: Thu 22 Nov 2012 08:04:05 PM PST
Group       : System Environment/Kernel
Size        : 11589052
License     : Redistributable, no modification permitted
Signature   : (none)
Source RPM  : nvidia-kmod-304.60-1.fc16.2.src.rpm
Build Date  : Thu 22 Nov 2012 08:03:57 PM PST
Build Host  : knox.knox-data
Relocations : (not relocatable)
URL         : http://www.nvidia.com/
Summary     : nvidia kernel module(s) for 3.6.6-1.fc16.i686
Description :
This package provides the nvidia kernel modules built for the Linux
kernel 3.6.6-1.fc16.i686 for the i686 family of processors.
[knox@knox ~]$

Comment 12 rmknox 2012-11-26 01:48:31 UTC
DESCRIPTION OF THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM

It appears that the system deposits updated kernels without determining whether akmods will work with those kernels.

This can cause boot problems - particularly with systems that have proprietary video drivers.

Suggestion - perhaps the kernel installation process should attempt to run build akmods. If the result is positive continue as present. If the attempt to build akmods fails, modify the grub configuration file in 2 ways , (1)set the parameter "default" to one more the present value so that on boot it does not automatically start the non runnable system.  Also (2) do not include the 2 parameters "quiet" and "rhgb" on the unrunnable kernel - just in case someone changes the default with out understanding what is up.

You could then have a message that continues to appear on the log on screen

"There is an uninstalled kernel lacking dependencies" - For example

Until it has been fixed and default is set back to zero.

Comment 13 Josh Boyer 2012-11-26 14:54:12 UTC
(In reply to comment #12)
> DESCRIPTION OF THE UNDERLYING PROBLEM
> 
> It appears that the system deposits updated kernels without determining
> whether akmods will work with those kernels.
> 
> This can cause boot problems - particularly with systems that have
> proprietary video drivers.

Fedora doesn't support kmods, akmods, dkms, or proprietary drivers.

Since you are the original reporter of this bug and you are using things Fedora doesn't provide or support, we are going to close this bug report out.  If you have difficulties with your akmods/drivers in the future, you should report those issues to the parties you got them from.


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