No Desktop after kernel 4.9.56 to 4.14.xx upgrade.

[isadora]

Using Kernel 4.9.56 on Mageia6 32bit with KDE/Plasma5 no problems on login in.
After upgrade to kernel 4.14.10 or 4.14.13 mostly get black screen or splash screen with mouse cursor but then get no further.

Using intel 810 video driver.
When login gets to desktop on occasions, system will work for a short time, but often will freeze. Doing a Ctl-Alt-Delete will bring up a KSMServer crash handler dialog with seg fault 11.
Can get back to sddm login window with a Ctl-Alt-BackSpace x2 ..

Looking at journalctl -ab with unhappy 4.14.x I get this crash message sequence that I dont get in a good 4.9.56 login

Code: Select all

Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au plasmashell[3018]: qt5ct: using qt5ct plugin
Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au drkonqi[3019]: qt5ct: using qt5ct plugin
Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au plasmashell[3018]: "Message recipient disconnected from message bus without replying"
Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au drkonqi[3019]: found lsb_release
Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au drkonqi[3019]: Using /proc to determine executable path
Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au drkonqi[3019]: Executable is: "/usr/bin/plasmashell"
Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au drkonqi[3019]: Executable exists: true
Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au drkonqi[3019]: Enabling drkonqi crash catching
Jan 16 09:55:20 newport.nwt.net.au kdeinit5[2811]: Registering "org.kde.StatusNotifierItem-3019-1/StatusNotifierItem" to system tray
Jan 16 09:55:22 newport.nwt.net.au drkonqi[3019]: Sending SIGSTOP to process

I dont get any drkonqi messages on a 4.9.x login.

I suspect the plasmashell is failing and the ksmserver crash msg is a symptom of plasma not working when I try to exit....

Can anyone give suggestions on why this failure to get to desktop is happening in the new kernels ?

[gregM]

Looking at /var/log/messages when the system (plasmashell) stops working I see this :-

plasmashell[7232]: segfault at 18 ip ac02ef05 sp bff58b80 error 4 in i915_dri.so[abc88000+7d4000]

So Plasmashell is segfaulting failing with error 4 in i915_dri.so
Now what is that all about ?
Also a new user with default KDE setup does the same thing.....

[lxdragon]

I'm getting kernel panics with both 4.14.10 and 4.14.13. Luckily I can still boot to 4.9.56.

[gregM]

I can't help with the kernel panic, but my problems in the original post, with 4.14.x kernel upgrade with X session login and desktop lock ups have been resolved.
The last post I made referenced the plasmashell (KDE5) i915_dri.so file causing seg faults, and the previous post had plasma shell segfaults and black screens.
Found the i915dri.so was relating to the video driver my X system was using for the intel G33 810 chipsset, so after changing video modes to no effect... I changed the video driver (or possibly just reloaded it) by selecting the Xorg intel driver not the Vendor Intel 810 version.

Since then I have been able to use the 4.14.13 kernel.
I dont think this will help your kernel panic though lxdragon!

[doktor5000]

I'm getting kernel panics with both 4.14.10 and 4.14.13. Luckily I can still boot to 4.9.56.

You can try if you can boot if you append nopti as boot option.

[doktor5000]

I tried adding the nopti option to the boot line. I added it after vga=791 on the regular boot line, and that didn't work. Then I added it after the "failsafe" option in the recovery mode boot line and that didn't help either. I hope I did it the right way, I hit "e" to edit the grub line at boot, and then ctrl-x to boot with the modified version.

[doktor5000]

I tried adding the nopti option to the boot line. I added it after vga=791 on the regular boot line, and that didn't work.

Can you elaborate what "that didn't work" means ?

[lxdragon]

Can you elaborate what "that didn't work" means ?

Oh sorry, still getting the kernel panic, even with the "nopti" option.

[doktor5000]

You might want to start a new thread about that issue, and add some basic information regarding your hardware.

[wintpe]

while this has fixed your issue

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05869091

you might want to read this.

hp withdraws bios updates for workstations re meltdown/spectre

regards peter

[lxdragon]

while this has fixed your issue

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05869091

you might want to read this.

hp withdraws bios updates for workstations re meltdown/spectre

regards peter

Of course when you install the new BIOS, it says there is no going back! Luckily it does not appear that the Z400 was affected since that BIOS update has not been pulled.

Chris