[mythtv-users] Display weirdness

[DryHeat122]

On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 7:43 PM Stephen Worthington <
stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:

> On Sun, 13 Sep 2020 14:47:39 -0700, you wrote:
>
> >On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 1:56 PM DryHeat122 <dryheat122 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> On Sun, Sep 13, 2020 at 8:27 AM alain <alain at alain.homeunix.org> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi,
> >>>
> >>> I've had this problem on two different system in the past and currently
> >>> on my main mythfrontend.
> >>> Do ssh back to your computer and check the output of xrandr. In
> >>> particular, the display being used.
> >>> After blanking the screen, when restoring the display, on some
> >>> driver/hardware/software version, the X output is reconnected to the
> wrong
> >>> screen. If you have more than one interface on your graphic card, the
> odds
> >>> are that this is your problem.
> >>> You can verify by either connecting a display on the other port or by
> >>> using xrandr to switch to another screen.
> >>> I've written a script which monitors the output of xrandr and fixes the
> >>> problem when it detects the problem.
> >>>
> >>> Alain
> >>>
> >>
> >> For the black screen problem, when I tried from the SSH terminal xrandr
> >> returns "Can't open display"
> >>
> >I figured out the proper command is xrandr -d :0, which resulted in a
> >listing of two outputs (DVI-I-1 and VGA), and a whole bunch of size
> >options for the former.
>
> To get xrandr to work from ssh, there are two things needed.  You need
> to tell it which display (-d :0 as you discovered).  But you also need
> to run xrandr as the same user as the desktop is running under.  So if
> your ssh login does not match, you have to do something like:
>
> sudo -u <desktop user> xrandr -d :0
>
> >I rebooted and it booted to a black screen, again
> >and again.  So I searched on the error and wound-up here
> ><
> https://www.stephenwagner.com/2019/05/05/ubuntu-linux-black-screen-frozen-system-after-upgrade-install/#:~:text=After%20upgrading%20a%20computer%20from,and%20the%20system%20becomes%20frozen.&text=This%20is%20due%20to%20a,system%20to%20halt%20or%20freeze
> .>.
> >I followed the advice about adding nomodeset to the grub config.  Now it
> >will boot, but the resolution is 1280 x 1024 and the display app won't
> >allow setting to any other resolution.  xrandr -d :0 returns:
> >
> >xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
> >Screen 0: minimum 1280 x 1024, current 1280 x 1024, maximum 1280 x 1024
> >default connected primary 1280x1024+0+0 0mm x 0mm
> >   1280x1024     77.00*
> >
> >Whereas before it listed the monitor name "Samsung TV" and as I said a
> >whole bunch of possible resolutions and the DVI and VGA outputs on the
> >video card.  I looked up this issue and somebody said to make sure you
> >don't have nomodeset in the grub config!
>
> I have never used nomodeset, but this seems to explain what it does:
>
> https://askubuntu.com/questions/207175/what-does-nomodeset-do
>
> That page is pretty old now, so things have likely changed since then.
>
> So what all this implies is that you have graphics driver problems,
> which I think you already know.  Using nomodeset may get you to be
> able to see a GUI screen, but it is not a long term solution as it is
> likely that the kernel modesetting code is now used by all video
> drivers and you will not get anything except the most basic
> unaccellerated video modes without it.  The mode that it is using is a
> bit strange too.  It is 77.0 Hz, which reads like a text mode rather
> than a graphics one.  I am guessing that it is the mode provided by
> the VESA code in the BIOS that has the highest clock rate.  I think
> you are lucky that your screen actually supports that mode, as it
> appears that using nomodeset means that the video drivers do not probe
> the hardware at all to find out what might match.
>
> What is the video card?  What drivers are you using for it?  Is there
> a PPA you can install to get later drivers?  Can you install an older
> version of the graphics drivers and get it to work?
>
> From the command line, the ubuntu-drivers command can be used to
> select which video drivers are installed.  As I have the Nvidia PPA
> installed, I get a lot of options to choose from with my Nvidia GT1030
> card:
>
> root at mypvr:/etc/X11# ubuntu-drivers list
> nvidia-driver-410
> nvidia-driver-450
> nvidia-driver-415
> nvidia-driver-440-server
> nvidia-driver-418-server
> nvidia-driver-390
> nvidia-driver-435
> root at mypvr:/etc/X11# ubuntu-drivers devices
> == /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/0000:01:00.0 ==
> modalias : pci:v000010DEd00001D01sv00001043sd000085F4bc03sc00i00
> vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
> model    : GP108 [GeForce GT 1030]
> driver   : nvidia-driver-415 - third-party free
> driver   : nvidia-driver-390 - distro non-free
> driver   : nvidia-driver-418-server - distro non-free
> driver   : nvidia-driver-450 - third-party free recommended
> driver   : nvidia-driver-435 - distro non-free
> driver   : nvidia-driver-440-server - distro non-free
> driver   : nvidia-driver-410 - third-party free
> driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin
>
> If you have an Nvidia card, to update to the latest PPA versions, just
> add the PPA:
>
> https://launchpad.net/~graphics-drivers/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
>
> sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
> sudo apt update
>
> and then run:
>
> sudo ubuntu-drivers install
>
> You can also use apt install to select specific versions of the video
> driver packages.
>
> I am currently running the 450 drivers as they seem better than the
> earlier ones (slightly less buggy).  I have been getting video lockups
> where the screen freezes but the rest of the system is still running
> fine.  Occasionally I was able to get Ctrl-Alt-Backspace to restart X
> and recover from the freezes, but mostly I needed to wait until I was
> not recording and then reboot as nothing else worked.  I have not been
> on the 450 series drivers long enough to know if they fix this as the
> freezes were only once or twice a week and seemed to happen when a
> screen mode change was done.  Since I have now changed all my mode
> setup to prevent the use of interlaced modes, that may also be
> helping.
>


My drivers are as follows:

steve at steve-EP45-UD3P:~$ ubuntu-drivers devices
== /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0 ==
modalias : pci:v000010DEd000006E4sv00003842sd0000C725bc03sc00i00
vendor   : NVIDIA Corporation
model    : G98 [GeForce 8400 GS Rev. 2]
driver   : nvidia-340 - distro non-free recommended
driver   : xserver-xorg-video-nouveau - distro free builtin

I updated the nvidia drivers, something was definitely installed, and the
same driver is shown.  I got rid of the nomodeset argument to grub. Now it
boots to the normal screen at the normal resolution.  Going back to an
earlier recommendation of yours, I check the X11 conf file and it had DMPS
set to false already.  So I set it to true and added the section setting
the timings to zero.  So far, I've not had the black screen problem again.
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