[SOLVED] Buster goes to black screen after recent update

[MH]

I'm running Buster, maybe the past 6 months, with daily updates. As is normally the case with Debian testing, I've only run into a few minor issues, until I did an update a couple days ago. After the update, a reboot took me to a black screen. Mouse and keyboard were unresponsive.

Since there were a large number of packages involved, I had little hope of isolating the culprit and restored my system to its original state from backup. I experienced a similar problem some months ago when first attempting to install Buster. The problem at that time was a buggy Nvidia driver. I had upgraded my PC and the video card I installed required the latest driver. At first, I thought the problem was with SDDM (I'm running KDE) as I've had numerous problems with SDDM since its introduction.

This time it may actually have something to do with SDDM, although SDDM itself was not one of the packages updated. An SDDM configuration utility was. But so were a lot of other KDE-related packages. The Nvidia driver was not one of the updates. Normally, I'd submit a bug report via Reportbug, but I have no idea how to report this, since I don't know what caused the problem.

Interestingly, I updated a laptop which relies on an Intel graphics chip, and all is well. So there does seem to be something related to the Nvidia driver, though the driver itself was not updated. Anyone have any advice on how to procede? Anyone with a similar experience? I'm holding off on any further updates until I can isolate the problem.

[dcihon]

I don't have a nvidia card but does running

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nvidia-xconfig

do anything to help

[Wheelerof4te]

It is a known bug:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=902375
A lot of fuss about it on Reddit, too. Somehow people expect beta-stage Linux OS to work well with NVIDIA, lol.
I don't blame NVIDIA, they aren't obligated to support development branches of any OS. And I don't blame Debian either, since nvidia-driver is non-free software.

For what it's worth, updated working driver is in Sid, so it should trickle down to Testing in a matter of days.

[MH]

It is a known bug:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=902375
A lot of fuss about it on Reddit, too. Somehow people expect beta-stage Linux OS to work well with NVIDIA, lol.
I don't blame NVIDIA, they aren't obligated to support development branches of any OS. And I don't blame Debian either, since nvidia-driver is non-free software.

For what it's worth, updated working driver is in Sid, so it should trickle down to Testing in a matter of days.

I'm not sure why people freak out over a bug in testing. It's to be expected. I guess the Debian devs are too good for their own good, putting out a testing distro that's relatively stable. Anyway, thanks for the bug report link. The problem is apparently with an xserver package, not the nvidia-driver itself, so that explains my confusion over what exactly was happening. Glad to know a fix is coming. Last time it was over 3 months before the problem was resolved.

[@ttila]

I don't know it is the same my problem when i updated kernel 4.16.16, it broke nvidia driver. If it is so, there is a workaround:

In grub, press "e" and add the following string at the end of the "linux" row:

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slab_common.usercopy_fallback=Y

Now it will boot. To make it permanent, add the same string in /etc/default/grub in the row:

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quite slab_common.usercopy_fallback=Y"

launch

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update-grub

as root. Done!!!!!!!

[MH]

I don't know it is the same my problem when i updated kernel 4.16.16, it broke nvidia driver. If it is so, there is a workaround:

In grub, press "e" and add the following string at the end of the "linux" row:

Code: Select all

slab_common.usercopy_fallback=Y

Now it will boot. To make it permanent, add the same string in /etc/default/grub in the row:

Code: Select all

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quite slab_common.usercopy_fallback=Y"

launch

Code: Select all

update-grub

as root. Done!!!!!!!

I came across that particular workaround, but I tend to prefer to wait for proper fixes rather than hacks. And so it is, a patched nvidia-driver arrived today. Problem solved.