Alpha 3: Screen goes black.

[laidlaws]

After "hanging" twice, got Alpha 3 to proceed to a normal full install with KDE.

Upon rebooting, everything goes well until the row of dots on the bootup screen has about one to go. Then the graphic contracts vertically and I am left with a black screen. Booting into failsafe mode, it never reaches a command prompt, but goes black as before.

[wilcal]

After "hanging" twice, got Alpha 3 to proceed to a normal full install with KDE.

Upon rebooting, everything goes well until the row of dots on the bootup screen has about one to go. Then the graphic contracts vertically and I am left with a black screen. Booting into failsafe mode, it never reaches a command prompt, but goes black as before.

IMO when the hang on install occurs the complete
system has not been installed. If you successfully
get through the hang you'll eventually need whatever
file or app to proceed, it's not there, and the system
will hang or die. IMO

If you can install 64-bit M2A3 into a Vbox shell.
That will actually run quite nicely and you can
tinker there until the Live-CD's appear on the
mirrors this week.

[laidlaws]

You are probably right. This is a clean install, but the tendency to "hang" has been reported
as a bug, so perhaps something did get left out. So far, it is only a report, with no suggestion
of why it happens.

[isadora]

After "hanging" twice, got Alpha 3 to proceed to a normal full install with KDE.

Upon rebooting, everything goes well until the row of dots on the bootup screen has about one to go. Then the graphic contracts vertically and I am left with a black screen. Booting into failsafe mode, it never reaches a command prompt, but goes black as before.

Exactly the same here.
32-bits-Installation at VMPlayer.

[laidlaws]

I got around the installation problem by reinstalling Alpha 2 then upgrading with the Alpha 3 CD. That worked OK for a while, but now I can't boot into Cauldron. I get a message to go into the maintenance shell, but the system is completely frozen, in runlevel 5 or single user.
"DISK BOOT FAILURE - INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" would be about as effective. I really think that a bugfix release of Alpha 3 is required. A system that won't run, can't be tested.

[wilcal]

Right now my only working M2A3 test platform
is a 64-bit Vbox KDE install. It does come up
at 1920x1080 but when updated, and rebooted,
it ends up at 1080x760 and this evening it came
up with a blank text login screen after updates.

M2A3 32-bit DVD hangs before finishing install.
When it hangs is dependent on how fast the test
platform is.
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4124

Unfortunately I can't get an install of M2A3 64-bit
because that system uses a wireless USB Keyboard & Mouse.
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4129

A boot.iso install using mirrors.kernel.org also
hangs during install.

So I'm kinda stuck right now and waiting for
the M2A3 Live-CD's to show up on the mirrors.
Hopefully they'll be a little more stable.

Today there were well over 200 updates to the
Mageia 2 ( Cauldron ) repo. I update my local
repo every day sometimes several times. That's
a LOT of changes. So this thing is constantly
changing big time. I expect lots of instability.

"DISK BOOT FAILURE - INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"
yes is my friend. I drop dban.org on a hard drive
and it wipe it clean before any attempts to install
a new OS to it. That way there's nothing left
of the old OS.

[drakeia]

After "hanging" twice, got Alpha 3 to proceed to a normal full install with KDE.

Upon rebooting, everything goes well until the row of dots on the bootup screen has about one to go. Then the graphic contracts vertically and I am left with a black screen. Booting into failsafe mode, it never reaches a command prompt, but goes black as before.

Exactly the same here.
32-bits-Installation at VMPlayer.

Slightly different story for me:

Mageia 2 Alpha 3 DVD install (32 bits) into Virtual Box (on Windows 7 64).

Install is fine, first reboot is OK, I used KDE, the Terminal, no problem here.

After shutdown and reboot, I also get the black screen, just after the row of dots boot animation.
From now every startup leads to black screen.

I can tell the install was with everything default, except FR keyboard and language, and guest account activated.

[ferri]

Exactly the same here.
32-bits-Installation at VMPlayer.

Exactly at me.

[juergen_harms]

Similar - same? - problem here: the screen (KDE folderview desktop in Alpha 3) all at sudden goes black. I am pretty sure about what is happening, but not about the reason:

I think what happens when the screen goes black, is that for reasons unknown there is a switch from the X/KDE session to a Linux console session: just by hitting Control-Shift-F8 I can always switch back to my KDE session which still is in perfect working order. I am less shure of what triggers these incidents: the screensaver running amok? (I kept the default screensaver that is installed with out-of-the box KDE): that would be about the interval of this kind of incident arriving.

[doktor5000]

Just for reference: I've not installed Alpha3, but upgraded a Mageia 1 DualArchCD install to Cauldron,
and it has no such problems, even Virtualbox Additions working fine. It also hasn't seen such problems
during the last weeks.

[wilcal]

Just for reference: I've not installed Alpha3, but upgraded a Mageia 1 DualArchCD install to Cauldron,
and it has no such problems......

AH HA!!!!! now I know how you keep things going.
I'm of a complete different mindset. I will completely
blow out a previous installation of the test OS, in this
case Cauldron ( sometimes with dban.org ), and do
a install from the get go. Many times I've shed a tear
knowing I'm blowing out a perfectly good install of
Cauldron/Cooker and headed into the badlands.
But that's part of the testing.

[junk_no_spam]

After "hanging" twice, got Alpha 3 to proceed to a normal full install with KDE.

Upon rebooting, everything goes well until the row of dots on the bootup screen has about one to go. Then the graphic contracts vertically and I am left with a black screen. Booting into failsafe mode, it never reaches a command prompt, but goes black as before.

Twice, you say. Must be nice, I kept rebooting for 29 minutes and hung at different services. I have found I can use just a
Alt+SysRq+e and always get in. Because of that, I won't open any bug reports since that might create the problem in the first place.

We might want to start adding entries from "dmidecode --type 2,10" to bug 4035 systems which hang during boot. Alpha2 clean install was not a problem on three of my machines. Alpha3 would hang during install on two of my machines. bug 4144

Might also want to dmesg | grep irqbalance, grep irqbalance /var/log/messages and grep irqbalance /var/log/kernel/*
bug 4035 after the system has finished booting +5-8 minutes later bug 4199.

[wobo]

Ok, here's yet another version of "Screen goes black":

Fresh install of Alpha3 short after Alpha3 was released. Installation goes fine, no hang. Reboot -> into a konsole login prompt on tty1 instead of X with kdm. This indicates most times a non-starting X server. But not here! When I login and then write 'startx' KDE starts just fine. Enter the next weirdo: after a short time the screen switches to a konsole login on tty1 in the middle of work - Ctrl+Alt+F2 takes me back to the KDE session just where I left it! Now this keeps happening all the time which makes the system almost unusable.

The weird points:
- a konsole login on tty1 while the devels made a big thing about X now being on tty1!
- X on tty2 instead of tty1
- switching to tty1 in the middle of a session without me doing anything nor any other recognizable cause, nor any regular timing nor any relation to screensaver timing.

Situation is the same although I installed all updates as of today.

[doktor5000]

@wilcal: Reason was simple: this was the fastest way to get that install up, as there's no dualarch for alpha3
and i had one of Mageia 1 available. I'm using this mainly for packaging for cauldron, not for installation testing.

[juergen_harms]

Just for reference: I've not installed Alpha3, but upgraded a Mageia 1 DualArchCD install to Cauldron,
and it has no such problems......

AH HA!!!!! now I know how you keep things going.
I'm of a complete different mindset.

There is a non-mindset explanation: Just upgrading incrementally from Alpha 1 keeps the files under .kde4/ (with some editing). Which means that in the Alpha 1 based installation, some .kde4/ files have "history" and may be different from the kde4 files that are generated from scratch when the latest kde version is launched. Would be interesting to see what doctor gets when he creates a new user (which creates a fresh .kde4 hierachy).

I had done like doctor, and did not have these problems (well into Alpha 3 time) until I committed the foolishness to do an install from the Alpha 3 iso dvd

[doktor5000]

Well, i'm just using it for packaging, and to keep the updates at minimum, i'm only using LXDE.
But when it's finished building, i'll surely give QT/KDE 4.8 a spin.

[martinw]

wobo, have you seen https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4170. The workaround given there fixed the TTY switching problem for me.

[drakeia]

Mageia 2 Alpha 3 DVD install (32 bits) into Virtual Box (on Windows 7 64).

Install is fine, first reboot is OK, I used KDE, the Terminal, no problem here.

After shutdown and reboot, I also get the black screen, just after the row of dots boot animation.
From now every startup leads to black screen.

I can tell the install was with everything default, except FR keyboard and language, and guest account activated.

And can also say that:
*) Ctrl-Alt-F1 - Fx won't switch (since it's virtual box I press host key and F1 - Fx )
*) Mouse capture seems to work, and release also
*) Asking shutdown by ACPI change black screen to shutdown screen whith Mageia logo and dots... but then its crashes Virtual Box after a few seconds

[nextwave]

I'm currently working around that, but I have the same issue. I found that on boot up when you see the dots, press esc and you'll get a verbos list instead. Your OS should boot. I have a feeling its something to do with Plymouth but I haven't tried to fix this yet. I'm currently working on a different bug about missing icons https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4292 As soon as I do a bit more digging I'll see whats going on with mine and report back. Just wanted to let you know that you are not allow with this error.

[drakeia]

I can login using runlevel 3.
At the end of my /var/log/X.org.0.log (partial hand copy):

Code: Select all

Fatal server error:
[    18.546] xf86OpenConsole: VT_ACTIVATE failed: Input/output error

[    18.546] (WW) xf86OpenConsole: KDSETMODE failed: Input/output error
[    18.546] (WW) xf86OpenConsole: VT_GETMODE failed: Input/output error
FatalError re-entered, aborting
[    18.546] xf86OpenConsole: VT_ACTIVATE failed: Input/output error


[yisheng]

Running Mageia 2 alpha 3, on Virtual Box (Vbox installed from source code, Orcale Version 4.18r75467)
The install went well with the exeption that encrypted root partition seemed impossible as a setup, do not know if you support LUKS encrypted root/swap/home with /boot normal (that is without the use of LVM).
I proceeded therefore to the install of Mageia alpha with default value on the virutal machine. On this machine, with the same setting, on another virtual disk, I have running also Mageia 1, flawlessly up to now.
The M2A3 did start well up to the login, then hung, black screen. After a reset it did come to the kdm login, loged in fine. I was able to perform updates, connect to the internet, the only error noted was that starting Kontakt did not start kmail, apparently kmail did not install during setup??
So I decided to shutdown and investigate when I would have more time. Since then I cannot login. The start runs well with one error message that is (as far as I can capture):

Code: Select all

starting volatile files and directory:  failed, see systemctl status system.d temp files.........

Shortly afterwards the system goes into black screen. I do get no error message on the terminal prior to it.
Reproducible always. This is a stable and apparently unrecoverable error. I tried to setup with "other Linux" instead of Mandriva, thought it might be a setup issue. but this give exactly the same result.
I then proceeded and deactivated 3D support. The machine boots flawlessly.
I decided to change the guest additions to the ones delivered by Oracle. During install you get the warning:

Code: Select all

WARNING: Deprecated config file /etc/modprobe.conf, all config files belong into /etc/modprobe.d/.

You can then restart and.........black screen. So funny, I decided to try. I did reactivate now 3D support. Now after two error messages

Code: Select all

udisk daemon and login service failed

.......it starts X with:

Code: Select all

cannot open control kit session. Unable to open session. Activation of xorg free desktop........

.(and then you cannot read it because it is over screen width.
You click on a big big OK button and the boot goes through to a working kde desktop. No sound though.
So I tried to do now a regular shutdown again from here. I restarted the machine. The only error message I get now is the already mentioned

Code: Select all

starting volatile files and directory:  failed, see systemctl status system.d temp files.........

. The system starts now with regularity. Sound works.

Settings of virtualbox:
Installation Linux, Flavor: Mandriva
Base Memory 3200 MB, 4CPU
Acceleration: VT-x/AMD-V, Paginazione nested, PAE/NX
Video 128 MB with 3D activated
remote desktop non active
Sound: PulseAudio
Controller: ICH AC97
Virtual Box additions: installed corresponding Oracle Version 4.18r75467
USB 2.0 activated

Hope that helps in any way.

[junk_no_spam]

Twice, you say. Must be nice, I kept rebooting for 29 minutes and it hung at different services.

Found my problem. Had to remove the init=/bin/systemd from the kernel line in /boot/grub/menu.lst
It was a carryover from the Alpha2 install.

Several other problems cleared up after doing another clean install and doing the updates.

[nextwave]

Unfortunately I still dont have a login screen, I can log in af the command prompt but the I cannot log into gnome, it default automatically to KDE.
I'm going to attempt a reinstall today at work. Handy when I work at a computer shop

[wobo]

In former times when I used to login to the text console I used 'startkde' to start x with kde or 'startgnome' to start x with gnome. I don't know whether these start scripts still exist.

[nextwave]

I'm doing a fresh install of just GNOME and will try that. GNOME 3 is what I've been waiting for