Recent upgrade kills text console

[doctordruidphd]

Not sure exactly when this happened, but I can no longer get to a text console. CTRL-ALT-F1 takes me to a blank screen, and the monitor goes into power down mode. This also happens during shutdown -- instead of going back to the text screen (I don't use plymouth or any graphical boot screen), it just goes blank.

The console is there and functioning -- I can log in in the blind, issue commands, shut down and restart kdm (not using lightdm) and kdm restarts, but I have lost the ability to see the text console. This is not good as I do all upgrades from the console.

This may be connected with the nvidia-current upgrade from 7 March, not sure exactly.

Anyone else noticing this?

Edit: Confirmed that this occurred after upgrading on 7 March, which includes an nvidia-current upgrade. Not sure it is the nvidia-current package doing this, but it's something in that set of downloads. A backup I saved prior to upgrading doesn't have this issue.

[vinnywright]

maybe the Nvidia ,,,,,all ctrl>alt>F1-6 work @hear

VINNY

[oshunluvr]

I run nvidia and didn't have this issue.

Anything in Xorg.0.log or ~/.xsession-errors ??

[oshunluvr]

Ok, I just found out something odd. My log file shows nVidia 304.48 is being used. Jockey shows nvidia_experimental_304 is "activated but not currently in use." 5 other nvidia drivers are listed too, but all as not activated. Very strange. I'm afraid to touch anything now. dkms status shows 304.48 installed so Jockey is out-of-whack.

[oshunluvr]

So, I'm on the previous driver 304 and the newest is 310. I'm staying put!

[doctordruidphd]

Nothing unusual in Xorg.0.log or .xsession-errors.
I never use jockey, but I checked it, and also found several drivers. Some going back to 173??
The current driver version, installed by way of nvidia-current, is 304.84.
I guess the next step is to try nvidia-experimental-310

I should mention that I have had a problem similar to this before. It was several versions ago, so I don't remember the specifics, but I wound up getting rid of the gfxmode stuff in grub, and it fixed it, albeit with a really ugly console. I will try that, too.

[doctordruidphd]

Installed nvidia-experimental-310
System now working as it should, can switch to text console with no problem.
So probably some 'feature' of 304 not compatible with the way I have this set up.

[jlittle]

... probably some 'feature' of 304...

It would be good to know how this happens or what is going on, because it may be the same as what can affect new installs, including grub.

Regards, John Little

[doctordruidphd]

Yeah, it would be good to know. Beats me what to do about it, though. As I said, I have had the problem before, several releases ago, and at that time it seemed connected with grub graphics settings. It isn't this time -- putting grub in text only mode did not fix it. It is a problem with the driver not switching between graphics and text modes, and as I don't see anything in any of the logs, no idea how to track it down.

[SteveRiley]

nvidia-313 from Xorg-Edgers is working well here. Thinkpad T520, Quadro NVS 4200M. In fact, temperatures appear to be lower, too.