Black screen after GRUB menu

[MoonBlossom]

Hi,

I just upgraded my laptop to Utopic and I'm getting a black screen after the GRUB menu. I tried to open the terminal with CTRL+ALT and F keys but still nothing. After another reboot I noticed the system was running but the screen was black. I was able to do a succesful boot by selecting a previous kernel so something is not working with the new kernel installed with Utopic 3.16.0-23. I would like to know if there is a way to fix this problem.

Thank you!

[vinnywright]

1-how did you upgrade

2-as far as I know their has only been 1 kernel for Utopic so far so how do you have an older one ?

VINNY

[MoonBlossom]

I upgraded with sudo do-release-upgrade. The previous kernel was there from my Trusty installation.

[vinnywright]

what type of video do you have ?

maby the driver did not get rebuilt for the new kernel if you had been using a proprietary one .

VINNY

[MoonBlossom]

The laptop has a Nvidia 735m. I was using the nouveau driver and then booting from the previous kernel I selected the Nvidia drivers but that didn't solve my problem.

[Snowhog]

Most likely. From the prompt type: startx

If you are presented with the KDM login screen, then after you log in and are on the Desktop, check System Settings > Driver Manager.

[MoonBlossom]

Driver manager gives me three options. I tried using nouveau and the recommended NVidia driver. None worked for me on the current Utopic kernel.

[vinnywright]

you are installing them wile running the Utopic kernel rite ?

when you install the driver it gets built for the running kernel ,,,,,,,,I think.

VINNY

[MoonBlossom]

I selected the current kernel's recovery mode and I was able to get to KDE. I saw some error messages about NVidia driver being tainted? The messages went by fast so I don't know what else they said. After logging in to KDE I used driver manager and installed nouveau drivers and restarted. The machine still goes into a black screen after the grub menu.

[Snowhog]

'tainted' just means that the kernel sees 'proprietary' items.

[vinnywright]

do you still have these files

vinny@vinny-Bonobo-Extreme:[COLOR=#ff0000]/etc/modprobe.d[/COLOR]$ ls
alsa-base.conf              blacklist-oss.conf           mlx4.conf
blacklist-ath_pci.conf      blacklist-rare-network.conf  modesetting.conf
blacklist.conf              blacklist-watchdog.conf     [COLOR=#ff0000] nvidia-331_hybrid.conf[/COLOR]
blacklist-firewire.conf     dkms.conf                    [COLOR=#ff0000]nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf[/COLOR]
blacklist-framebuffer.conf  fbdev-blacklist.conf         vmwgfx-fbdev.conf
blacklist-modem.conf        iwlwifi.conf

if so you may try removeing/moving them ,,,,I think thay blacklist the nouveau driver ??

VINNY

[MoonBlossom]

I don't have those files. These are the ones I have:

moonblossom@dusk:/etc/modprobe.d$ ls
alsa-base.conf          blacklist.conf           blacklist-framebuffer.conf  blacklist-oss.conf           blacklist-watchdog.conf  fbdev-blacklist.conf  mlx4.conf         vmwgfx-fbdev.conf
blacklist-ath_pci.conf  blacklist-firewire.conf  blacklist-modem.conf        blacklist-rare-network.conf  dkms.conf                iwlwifi.conf          modesetting.conf

[SteveRiley]

Let's methodically work through some troubleshooting. First, please boot the kernel that works and provide the outputs of these commands:

dpkg -l | egrep -i 'nvidia|nouveau'

dkms status

egrep -i 'nvidia|nouveau' /var/log/Xorg.0.log

Oh, and what make/model of laptop do you have?

[MoonBlossom]

I have a Sony Vaio F

Output of dpkg -l | egrep -i 'nvidia|nouveau':

moonblossom@dusk:~$ dpkg -l | egrep -i 'nvidia|nouveau'
ii  bbswitch-dkms                                 0.7-2ubuntu1                                amd64        Interface for toggling the power on nVidia Optimus video cards
ii  libcg:amd64                                   3.1.0013-1                                  amd64        Nvidia Cg core runtime library
rc  libcg:i386                                    3.1.0013-1                                  i386         Nvidia Cg core runtime library
ii  libcggl:amd64                                 3.1.0013-1                                  amd64        Nvidia Cg Opengl runtime library
rc  libcggl:i386                                  3.1.0013-1                                  i386         Nvidia Cg Opengl runtime library
ii  libcuda1-331                                  331.89-0ubuntu5                             amd64        NVIDIA CUDA runtime library
ii  libdrm-nouveau2:amd64                         2.4.56-1                                    amd64        Userspace interface to nouveau-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
rc  libdrm-nouveau2:i386                          2.4.56-1                                    i386         Userspace interface to nouveau-specific kernel DRM services -- runtime
rc  nvidia-331                                    331.89-0ubuntu5                             amd64        NVIDIA binary driver - version 331.89
ii  nvidia-cg-dev:amd64                           3.1.0013-1                                  amd64        Cg Toolkit - GPU Shader Authoring Language (headers)
ii  nvidia-cg-toolkit                             3.1.0013-1                                  amd64        Cg Toolkit - GPU Shader Authoring Language
rc  nvidia-libopencl1-331                         331.38-0ubuntu7                             amd64        NVIDIA OpenCL Driver and ICD Loader library
ii  nvidia-opencl-icd-331                         331.89-0ubuntu5                             amd64        NVIDIA OpenCL ICD
ii  nvidia-prime                                  0.6.7                                       amd64        Tools to enable NVIDIA's Prime
ii  nvidia-settings                               331.20-0ubuntu8                             amd64        Tool for configuring the NVIDIA graphics driver
ii  xserver-xorg-video-nouveau                    1:1.0.11-1ubuntu2                           amd64        X.Org X server -- Nouveau display driver

dkms status

bbswitch, 0.7, 3.16.0-23-generic, x86_64: installed
vboxhost, 4.3.18, 3.13.0-37-generic, x86_64: installed
vboxhost, 4.3.18, 3.16.0-23-generic, x86_64: installed

egrep -i 'nvidia|nouveau' /var/log/Xorg.0.log

[    25.715] (==) Matched nvidia as autoconfigured driver 1
[    25.715] (==) Matched nouveau as autoconfigured driver 2
[    25.760] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
[    25.760] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
[    25.760] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia"
[    25.760] (II) Unloading nvidia
[    25.760] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
[    25.760] (II) LoadModule: "nouveau"
[    25.760] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nouveau_drv.so
[    25.783] (II) Module nouveau: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[    25.808] (==) Matched nvidia as autoconfigured driver 1
[    25.808] (==) Matched nouveau as autoconfigured driver 2
[    25.808] (II) LoadModule: "nvidia"
[    25.808] (WW) Warning, couldn't open module nvidia
[    25.808] (II) UnloadModule: "nvidia"
[    25.808] (II) Unloading nvidia
[    25.809] (EE) Failed to load module "nvidia" (module does not exist, 0)
[    25.809] (II) LoadModule: "nouveau"
[    25.809] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/nouveau_drv.so
[    25.809] (II) Module nouveau: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[    25.809] (II) UnloadModule: "nouveau"
[    25.809] (II) Unloading nouveau
[    25.809] (II) Failed to load module "nouveau" (already loaded, 0)
[    25.810] (II) NOUVEAU driver Date:   Thu Aug 28 03:57:48 2014 +0200
[    25.810] (II) NOUVEAU driver for NVIDIA chipset families :
[    25.810] (II) [drm] nouveau interface version: 1.1.2
[    25.817] (--) NOUVEAU(G0): Chipset: "NVIDIA NV108"
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): RGB weight 888
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Default visual is TrueColor
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Using HW cursor
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): GLX sync to VBlank enabled.
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Page flipping enabled
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Swap limit set to 1 [Max allowed 2]
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Page flipping synced to vblank by kernel.
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
[    25.817] (--) NOUVEAU(G0): Virtual size is 1024x768 (pitch 0)
[    25.817] (**) NOUVEAU(G0):  Mode "1920x1080": 173.0 MHz (scaled from 0.0 MHz), 67.2 kHz, 60.0 Hz
[    25.817] (II) NOUVEAU(G0): Modeline "1920x1080"x60.0  173.00  1920 2048 2248 2576  1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync (67.2 kHz)
[    25.817] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): DPI set to (96, 96)
[    25.818] (EE) NOUVEAU(G0): Error creating GPU channel: -19
[    25.818] (EE) NOUVEAU(G0): Error initialising acceleration.  Falling back to NoAccel
[    25.818] (**) NOUVEAU(G0): [COPY] acceleration disabled
[    25.947] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Backing store enabled
[    25.947] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): Silken mouse enabled
[    25.947] (==) NOUVEAU(G0): DPMS enabled
[    25.947] (II) NOUVEAU(G0): RandR 1.2 enabled, ignore the following RandR disabled message.
[    26.253] (II) NOUVEAU(G0): NVEnterVT is called.

[SteveRiley]

Let's clean the system of all NVIDIA drivers for now:

sudo apt-get purge bbswitch-dkms libcg:amd64 libcg:i386 libcggl:amd64 libcggl:i386 libcuda1-331 nvidia-331 nvidia-cg-dev:amd64 nvidia-cg-toolkit nvidia-libopencl1-331 nvidia-opencl-icd-331 nvidia-prime nvidia-settings

What's the output of

uname -a

sudo lshw -c DISPLAY

dpkg -l |egrep -i 'linux-headers|linux-image'