for some days now I only get a black screen after booting.
Detailed error description:
During the boot, the display resolution seems to be messed up and everything is displayed in a distorted manner. After the system boots up, the screen gets completely black (seems to be without backlight). Connecting an external monitor does not seem to help and it does also not seem to be possible to enter the terminal via e.g. Ctrl+Alt+F2 or at least nothing is visible and it is hard to do anything blind.
History of the system:
The system was initially set up as xubuntu 20.04 LTS. I encrypted the home partition using fscrypt. This appears now to be a fatal mistake since it does not seem to be possible to decrypt the data from another ubuntu installation (see Reinstall Ubuntu 22.04 with fscrypt encrypted HOME directory?) I then installed lubuntu-desktop hoping to lower the RAM usage a little and updated to 22.04 some weeks ago. After the update the system did not suspend any more and the screen stayed on for hours, so I changed the energy settings to switch off the backlight after 15 minutes without user interaction. I am not entirely sure if this was the decisive setting or probably a kernel update or some thing else.
What I would like to do
I would like to boot once into the system again, decrypt the current user data and back them up to external drive. I was going to make a clean install anyway since I wanted to exchange the HDD with an SSD.
What I tried so far
When I enter grub and change the config for the current kernel to nomodeset, the screen is on, but the system seems to use the wrong resolution or similar (some upper pixel lines keep the content from grub bootloader, below that everything is distorted, like the screen was too small or large and the lines were displayed shifted left and right).
When trying to use the recovery mode, the display is also distorted, so it is not possible to use that, really.
It is possible to boot from a live USB, so I tried boot-repair (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair ) with different options (e.g. nomodeset and GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX==keep) but that did not change anything.
I also added a lightdm setup script to correct the resolution, but it only seems to work when nomodeset is not set (for a split second before the screen switches off, the display becomes readable again).
I found an older thread also for an iMac with 14.04 (14.04 gets black screen unless radeon.modeset=0 ) but since ssh is not enabled I don't see a chance to apply this. I also found a thread with similar behavior regarding nomodeset in which the user just waited in the black screen for several minutes and then moved the mouse and the screen came back, but this did not work either.
Does anyone have any idea what else I could try?
Hardware: The system is installed on an Early 2008 iMac (2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8135, 4 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD, ATI Mobility Raden 2400 XT).
Extract from lightdm.log ´´´ (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sun Dec 18 11:44:15 2022
(==) Using default built-in configuration (39 lines)
(II) [KMS] drm report modesetting isn't supported. vesa: Refusing to run on UEFI (EE)
(EE) Backtrace:
(EE) 0: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (OsLookupColor+0x139) [0x55b0724a3719]
(EE) 1: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (__sigaction+0x50) [0x7f93b81d1520]
(EE) 2: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (InitCallbackManager+0x827) [0x55b0723331d7]
(EE) 3: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (InitCallbackManager+0x2b7b) [0x55b07233552b]
(EE) 4: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (DamageDamageRegion+0x11b3) [0x55b0724156b3]
(EE) 5: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (InitProximityClassDeviceStruct+0x1383) [0x55b072418df3]
(EE) 6: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (SwapShorts+0x22be) [0x55b0723588de]
(EE) 7: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (UnmapWindow+0x1ea) [0x55b07235bc6a]
(EE) 8: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (DeleteWindow+0x30) [0x55b07235bce0]
(EE) 9: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (RegisterExtensionNames+0x1ed) [0x55b07235460d]
(EE) 10: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (FreeResource+0xf1) [0x55b072355241]
(EE) 11: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (dixSaveScreens+0x306) [0x55b07235e716]
(EE) 12: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (InitFonts+0x5cf) [0x55b07233173f]
(EE) 13: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (__libc_init_first+0x90) [0x7f93b81b8d90]
(EE) 14: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (__libc_start_main+0x80) [0x7f93b81b8e40]
(EE) 15: /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg (_start+0x25) [0x55b07231a605] (EE)
(EE) Segmentation fault at address 0xb0
(EE) Fatal server error:
(EE) Caught signal 11 (Segmentation fault). Server aborting (EE)
(EE) Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support at http://wiki.x.org for help.
(EE) Please also check the log file at "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" for additional information. (EE)
(EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file. ´´´
Extract from Xorg.0.log
[ 68.118]
X.Org X Server 1.21.1.3
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
[ 68.118] Current Operating System: Linux Annes-iMac 5.15.0-56-generic #62-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 22 19:54:14 UTC 2022 x86_64
[ 68.118] Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.15.0-56-generic root=UUID=d7136309-782e-4219-9b0d-22886ffbbde1 ro acpi=off
[ 68.119] xorg-server 2:21.1.3-2ubuntu2.5 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support)
[ 68.119] Current version of pixman: 0.40.0
[ 68.119] Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
to make sure that you have the latest version.
[ 68.119] Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
(++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
(WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
[ 68.119] (==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.0.log", Time: Sun Dec 18 12:05:25 2022
[ 68.354] (II) Loader magic: 0x55fa14042020
[ 68.354] (II) Module ABI versions:
[ 68.354] X.Org ANSI C Emulation: 0.4
[ 68.354] X.Org Video Driver: 25.2
[ 68.354] X.Org XInput driver : 24.4
[ 68.354] X.Org Server Extension : 10.0
[ 68.355] (++) using VT number 7
[ 68.355] (II) systemd-logind: logind integration requires -keeptty and -keeptty was not provided, disabling logind integration
[ 68.356] (II) xfree86: Adding drm device (/dev/dri/card0)
[ 68.356] (II) Platform probe for /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:01.0/0000:01:00.0/drm/card0
[ 68.361] (--) PCI:(1@0:0:0) 1002:94c8:106b:0084 rev 0, Mem @ 0xc0000000/268435456, 0xd0520000/65536, I/O @ 0x00006000/256, BIOS @ 0x????????/131072
[ 68.361] (==) Using default built-in configuration (39 lines)
[ 68.361] (==) --- Start of built-in configuration ---
[ 68.361] Section "Device"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default ati Device 0"
[ 68.361] Driver "ati"
[ 68.361] EndSection
[ 68.361] Section "Screen"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default ati Screen 0"
[ 68.361] Device "Builtin Default ati Device 0"
[ 68.361] EndSection
[ 68.361] Section "Device"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default modesetting Device 0"
[ 68.361] Driver "modesetting"
[ 68.361] EndSection
[ 68.361] Section "Screen"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default modesetting Screen 0"
[ 68.361] Device "Builtin Default modesetting Device 0"
[ 68.361] EndSection
[ 68.361] Section "Device"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default fbdev Device 0"
[ 68.361] Driver "fbdev"
[ 68.361] EndSection
[ 68.361] Section "Screen"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default fbdev Screen 0"
[ 68.361] Device "Builtin Default fbdev Device 0"
[ 68.361] EndSection
[ 68.361] Section "Device"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default vesa Device 0"
[ 68.361] Driver "vesa"
[ 68.361] EndSection
[ 68.361] Section "Screen"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default vesa Screen 0"
[ 68.361] Device "Builtin Default vesa Device 0"
[ 68.361] EndSection
[ 68.361] Section "ServerLayout"
[ 68.361] Identifier "Builtin Default Layout"
[ 68.361] Screen "Builtin Default ati Screen 0"
[ 68.361] Screen "Builtin Default modesetting Screen 0"
[ 68.361] Screen "Builtin Default fbdev Screen 0"
[ 68.362] Screen "Builtin Default vesa Screen 0"
[ 68.362] EndSection
[ 68.362] (==) --- End of built-in configuration ---
[ 68.362] (==) ServerLayout "Builtin Default Layout"
[ 68.362] () |-->Screen "Builtin Default ati Screen 0" (0)
[ 68.362] () | |-->Monitor "<default monitor>"
[ 68.482] () | |-->Device "Builtin Default ati Device 0"
[ 68.482] (==) No monitor specified for screen "Builtin Default ati Screen 0".
Using a default monitor configuration.
[ 68.482] () |-->Screen "Builtin Default modesetting Screen 0" (1)
[ 68.482] () | |-->Monitor "<default monitor>"
[ 68.482] () | |-->Device "Builtin Default modesetting Device 0"
[ 68.482] (==) No monitor specified for screen "Builtin Default modesetting Screen 0".
Using a default monitor configuration.
[ 68.482] () |-->Screen "Builtin Default fbdev Screen 0" (2)
[ 68.482] () | |-->Monitor "<default monitor>"
[ 68.482] () | |-->Device "Builtin Default fbdev Device 0"
[ 68.482] (==) No monitor specified for screen "Builtin Default fbdev Screen 0".
Using a default monitor configuration.
[ 68.482] () |-->Screen "Builtin Default vesa Screen 0" (3)
[ 68.482] () | |-->Monitor "<default monitor>"
[ 68.483] (*) | |-->Device "Builtin Default vesa Device 0"
[ 68.483] (==) No monitor specified for screen "Builtin Default vesa Screen 0".
Using a default monitor configuration.
[ 68.483] (==) Automatically adding devices
[ 68.483] (==) Automatically enabling devices
[ 68.483] (==) Automatically adding GPU devices
[ 68.483] (==) Automatically binding GPU devices
[ 68.483] (==) Max clients allowed: 256, resource mask: 0x1fffff
[ 68.920] (WW) The directory "/usr/share/fonts/X11/cyrillic" does not exist.
[ 69.093] Entry deleted from font path.
...
[ 69.213] (==) FontPath set to:
/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc,
/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1,
built-ins
[ 69.213] (==) ModulePath set to "/usr/lib/xorg/modules"
[ 69.213] (II) The server relies on udev to provide the list of input devices.
If no devices become available, reconfigure udev or disable AutoAddDevices.
[ 69.221] (II) LoadModule: "glx"
[ 69.448] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so
[ 70.006] (II) Module glx: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 70.006] compiled for 1.21.1.3, module version = 1.0.0
[ 70.006] ABI class: X.Org Server Extension, version 10.0
[ 70.006] (II) LoadModule: "ati"
[ 70.140] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/ati_drv.so
[ 70.335] (II) Module ati: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 70.335] compiled for 1.21.1.3, module version = 19.1.0
[ 70.335] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 70.335] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[ 70.335] (II) LoadModule: "radeon"
[ 70.335] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/radeon_drv.so
[ 70.656] (II) Module radeon: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 70.656] compiled for 1.21.1.3, module version = 19.1.0
[ 70.656] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 70.656] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[ 70.657] (II) LoadModule: "modesetting"
[ 70.657] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/modesetting_drv.so
[ 70.700] (II) Module modesetting: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 70.700] compiled for 1.21.1.3, module version = 1.21.1
[ 70.700] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 70.700] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[ 70.700] (II) LoadModule: "fbdev"
[ 70.701] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/fbdev_drv.so
[ 70.851] (II) Module fbdev: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 70.851] compiled for 1.21.1.3, module version = 0.5.0
[ 70.851] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 70.851] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[ 70.851] (II) LoadModule: "vesa"
[ 70.852] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/drivers/vesa_drv.so
[ 70.877] (II) Module vesa: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 70.877] compiled for 1.21.1.3, module version = 2.5.0
[ 70.877] Module class: X.Org Video Driver
[ 70.877] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[ 70.877] (II) RADEON: Driver for ATI/AMD Radeon chipsets:
...
AMD Radeon HD 6900M Series, Mobility Radeon HD 6000 Series, BARTS,
AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series, AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series, TURKS, CAICOS,
ARUBA, TAHITI, PITCAIRN, VERDE, OLAND, HAINAN, BONAIRE, KABINI,
MULLINS, KAVERI, HAWAII
[ 70.882] (II) modesetting: Driver for Modesetting Kernel Drivers: kms
[ 70.882] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev
[ 70.882] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa
[ 70.890] (II) [KMS] Kernel modesetting enabled.
[ 70.890] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for modesetting
[ 70.890] (WW) Falling back to old probe method for fbdev
[ 70.890] (II) Loading sub module "fbdevhw"
[ 70.890] (II) LoadModule: "fbdevhw"
[ 70.891] (II) Loading /usr/lib/xorg/modules/libfbdevhw.so
[ 70.946] (II) Module fbdevhw: vendor="X.Org Foundation"
[ 70.946] compiled for 1.21.1.3, module version = 0.0.2
[ 70.946] ABI class: X.Org Video Driver, version 25.2
[ 70.946] (II) RADEON(0): Creating default Display subsection in Screen section
"Builtin Default ati Screen 0" for depth/fbbpp 24/32
[ 70.946] (==) RADEON(0): Depth 24, (--) framebuffer bpp 32
[ 70.947] (II) RADEON(0): Pixel depth = 24 bits stored in 4 bytes (32 bpp pixmaps)
[ 70.947] (==) RADEON(0): Default visual is TrueColor
[ 70.947] (==) RADEON(0): RGB weight 888
[ 70.947] (II) RADEON(0): Using 8 bits per RGB (8 bit DAC)
[ 70.947] (--) RADEON(0): Chipset: "ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 XT" (ChipID = 0x94c8)
...
[ 82.967] (II) RADEON(0): glamor X acceleration enabled on AMD RV610 (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.15.0-56-generic, LLVM 13.0.1)
[ 82.967] (II) RADEON(0): glamor detected, initialising EGL layer.
[ 82.967] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Color Tiling: enabled
[ 82.967] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Color Tiling 2D: enabled
[ 82.967] (==) RADEON(0): TearFree property default: auto
[ 82.967] (II) RADEON(0): KMS Pageflipping: enabled
[ 82.983] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-0 has no monitor section
[ 82.983] (II) RADEON(0): Output LVDS has no monitor section
[ 82.999] (II) RADEON(0): Output DIN has no monitor section
[ 82.999] (WW) RADEON(0): 3 ZaphodHeads crtcs unavailable. Some outputs will stay off.
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): EDID for output DVI-0
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): EDID for output LVDS
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Manufacturer: APP Model: 9c6a Serial#: 16843009
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Year: 2006 Week: 0
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): EDID Version: 1.3
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Digital Display Input
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Max Image Size [cm]: horiz.: 43 vert.: 27
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Gamma: 2.20
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): No DPMS capabilities specified
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Supported color encodings: RGB 4:4:4 YCrCb 4:4:4
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): First detailed timing is preferred mode
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): redX: 0.636 redY: 0.340 greenX: 0.292 greenY: 0.612
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): blueX: 0.146 blueY: 0.069 whiteX: 0.313 whiteY: 0.328
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Supported established timings:
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Manufacturer's mask: 10
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Supported detailed timing:
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): clock: 119.0 MHz Image Size: 433 x 270 mm
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): h_active: 1680 h_sync: 1728 h_sync_end 1760 h_blank_end 1840 h_border: 0
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): v_active: 1050 v_sync: 1053 v_sync_end 1059 v_blanking: 1080 v_border: 0
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Unknown vendor-specific block 1
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): LM201WE3-TLF1
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): Monitor name: Color LCD
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): EDID (in hex):
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): 00ffffffffffff0006106a9c01010101
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): 00100103802b1b780acf74a2574a9c25
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): 11505400001001010101010101010101
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): 0101010101017c2e90a0601a1e403020
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): 3600b10e1100001c0000000100061030
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): 11080000000000000a20000000fe004c
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): 4d3230315745332d544c4631000000fc
[ 83.015] (II) RADEON(0): 00436f6c6f72204c43440a202020002b
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Printing probed modes for output LVDS
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1680x1050"x59.9 119.00 1680 1728 1760 1840 1050 1053 1059 1080 -hsync +vsync (64.7 kHz eP)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1400x1050"x60.0 121.79 1400 1488 1632 1864 1050 1053 1057 1089 -hsync +vsync (65.3 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1280x1024"x59.9 109.10 1280 1368 1496 1712 1024 1027 1034 1063 -hsync +vsync (63.7 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1440x900"x60.0 106.68 1440 1528 1672 1904 900 903 909 934 -hsync +vsync (56.0 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1280x960"x60.0 101.34 1280 1360 1488 1696 960 963 967 996 -hsync +vsync (59.8 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1280x854"x60.0 89.34 1280 1352 1480 1680 854 857 867 887 -hsync +vsync (53.2 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1280x800"x60.0 83.71 1280 1352 1480 1680 800 803 809 831 -hsync +vsync (49.8 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1280x720"x60.0 74.65 1280 1344 1472 1664 720 723 728 748 -hsync +vsync (44.9 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1152x768"x59.9 71.95 1152 1216 1328 1504 768 771 781 798 -hsync +vsync (47.8 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "1024x768"x59.9 63.53 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 798 -hsync +vsync (47.8 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "800x600"x60.0 38.31 800 832 912 1024 600 603 607 624 -hsync +vsync (37.4 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "848x480"x59.9 31.65 848 872 952 1056 480 483 493 500 -hsync +vsync (30.0 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "720x480"x59.9 26.85 720 744 808 896 480 483 493 500 -hsync +vsync (30.0 kHz)
[ 83.016] (II) RADEON(0): Modeline "640x480"x59.9 23.98 640 664 720 800 480 483 487 500 -hsync +vsync (30.0 kHz)
[ 83.031] (II) RADEON(0): EDID for output DIN
[ 83.031] (II) RADEON(0): Output DVI-0 disconnected
[ 83.031] (II) RADEON(0): Output LVDS connected
[ 83.031] (II) RADEON(0): Output DIN disconnected
[ 83.031] (II) RADEON(0): Using exact sizes for initial modes
[ 83.031] (II) RADEON(0): Output LVDS using initial mode 1680x1050 +0+0
[ 83.031] (II) RADEON(0): mem size init: gart size :1fdee000 vram size: s:8000000 visible:f6c7000
[ 83.031] (==) RADEON(0): DPI set to (96, 96)
[ 83.031] (==) RADEON(0): Using gamma correction (1.0, 1.0, 1.0)
...
[ 83.075] (II) RADEON(0): [DRI2] Setup complete
[ 83.075] (II) RADEON(0): [DRI2] DRI driver: r600
[ 83.075] (II) RADEON(0): [DRI2] VDPAU driver: r600
[ 83.075] (II) RADEON(0): Front buffer size: 7087K
[ 83.075] (II) RADEON(0): VRAM usage limit set to 221022K
[ 83.093] (II) RADEON(0): SYNC extension fences enabled
[ 83.118] (II) RADEON(0): Present extension enabled
[ 83.118] (==) RADEON(0): DRI3 enabled
[ 83.118] (==) RADEON(0): Backing store enabled
[ 83.118] (II) RADEON(0): Direct rendering enabled
[ 83.507] (II) RADEON(0): Use GLAMOR acceleration.
[ 83.507] (II) RADEON(0): Acceleration enabled
[ 83.507] (==) RADEON(0): DPMS enabled
[ 83.507] (==) RADEON(0): Silken mouse enabled
[ 83.523] (II) RADEON(0): Set up textured video (glamor)
[ 83.523] (II) RADEON(0): [XvMC] Associated with GLAMOR Textured Video.
[ 83.523] (II) RADEON(0): [XvMC] Extension initialized.
...
[ 83.579] (II) RADEON(0): Setting screen physical size to 444 x 277
[ 84.105] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA Intel Line (/dev/input/event1)
[ 84.106] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 84.106] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 84.106] (II) config/udev: Adding input device HDA Intel Headphone (/dev/input/event2)
[ 84.106] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 84.106] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 84.107] (II) config/udev: Adding input device applesmc (/dev/input/event0)
[ 84.107] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 84.107] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
[ 84.107] (II) config/udev: Adding input device applesmc (/dev/input/js0)
[ 84.107] (II) No input driver specified, ignoring this device.
[ 84.107] (II) This device may have been added with another device file.
