3 green boxes with question marks during boot, is this a plymouth problem?

English Install/Boot/Login
1

Hi,
i think i have a problem with plymouth or the graphics configuration. When booting my laptop and opensuse tumbleweed i get to see 3 little green (fluctuating beetween darker and lighter tones) boxes or rectangles (with round edges), after some seceonds the boxes change to 3 question marks (basically 3 black question marks on top of the green boxes).
They do not disappair until the x server/gnome has started.

Is that normal? I do not have that with my opensuse 13.x instllations, and i would like to have some prettier boot screen.

2

I think it’s a bug of some kind.

The three green dots that change to question marks is a plymouth screen.

On my most recently installed Tumbleweed, I see that for around 90% of boots, and the regular fading in background screen for the other 10%. On an older factory install on a different computer, I get the regular plymouth background 100% of the time. This computer has Intel graphics (Haswell).

On a different computer with Nvidia graphics and an older factory install, I was getting the regular plymouth screen 100% of the time. I don’t boot that partition very often. But I did update to 20150103. And on the reboot after that update, I got three green dots. I probably should boot it again to see what happens.

3

Okay, just booted that again, and got the regular Plymouth background.

Maybe it is related to re-install of the Nvidia driver. However, the plymouth splash in initiated from the “initrd”, and I don’t think the Nvidia driver is in there. On my other box, the i915 driver for Intel might be in the “initrd”, but that doesn’t explain why two different factory/Tumbleweed installs on the same hardware behave differently.

4

On my 13.2, I see that for around 60% of boots, and the regular fading in background screen for the other 40%. (This computer also has Intel graphics.) I wonder about it sometimes, but everything works fine, so I never took the time to check into it. My Elders always told me “if it ain’t busted don’t fix it.”

5

My laptop has a Intel graphic card too (and a radeon but that is not used) and i get the dots all the time (100% of the boots). I did a fresh install of tumbleweed (with the new iso after opensuse 13.2 came out), so i did not upgraded from a very old version and got the dots from the beginning.

6

I get the three green dots every time - using an ati card and the ati driver.

7

Three green dots are text mode splash screen. It means plymouth could not detect any suitable kernel graphic support (either plain vesafb or KMS-enabled frame buffer).

8

And what would cause that?

9

Yes, but why?

It only happens with Tumbleweed installed after 13.2 was released, and even then only 90% of the time. It does not happen with 13.2 (on the same computer). It does not happen with a factory install last May (and updated through 20150103).

I expect that there’s a bug somewhere.

Today, I updated to 20150115. On the first boot after the update, I got the normal plymouth. I’m guessing (based on past experience) that when I next boot, I’ll get three green dots.

It is not a big deal for me, but it does seem buggy.

10

First thing to check would be stopping in initrd and looking around - what drivers are loaded, what logs say etc. Add rd.break to kernel command line; dracut spawns shell just before switching to real root. See man dracut.kernel for list of earlier break pints.

I myself use text mode console out of old habit (framebuffer was historically pretty fragile with nVidia drivers) so I do not really care :slight_smile:

11

I don’t really care either. I would uninstall “plymouth” except that I need it to use the same encryption key for multiple partitions. I used to do that with the “initrd” option in “/etc/crypttab”.

12

On Mon, 19 Jan 2015 18:46:01 GMT
arvidjaar <arvidjaar@no-mx.forums.opensuse.org> wrote:

>
> Three green dots are text mode splash screen. It means plymouth could
> not detect any suitable kernel graphic support (either plain vesafb or
> KMS-enabled frame buffer).

I have 3 root partitions so if I boot either of the two partitions
which pre-existed the installation of GRUB2 I’ll always get the three
dots. If I boot the other one, I should get the graphic splash screen
and mostly I do so but not always. This random effect occurs on this
machine and on one with Radeon graphics. Doesn’t bother me much but I do
find it puzzling - but then a lot puzzles me.

–
Graham Davis [Retired Fortran programmer - now a mere computer user]
openSUSE 13.2 (64-bit); KDE 4.14.3; AMD Phenom II X2 550 Processor;
Kernel: 3.18.1; Video: nVidia GeForce 210 (using nouveau driver);
Sound: ATI SBx00 Azalia (Intel HDA)

13

On 2015-01-20 06:06, nrickert wrote:
>
> arvidjaar;2690184 Wrote:
>> … so I do not really care :slight_smile:
>
> I don’t really care either. I would uninstall “plymouth” except that I
> need it to use the same encryption key for multiple partitions.

I do that without plymouth.

You add a new key for the “secondary” partitions, taken from a file with
random content that is stored in the first encrypted partition. You get
a prompt for the first one, then the rest are automatically opened.

And you keep two keys, anyway, so that mounting manually any single
partition remains possible. One key is the original one, for typing, the
second is taken from a file (securely stored in an encrypted partition).

For example, in “/etc/crypttab” I have:


cr_home  /dev/disk/by-id/ata-.....part6    none none

#cr_data   /dev/disk/by-uuid/f1f....             none none
cr_data   /dev/disk/by-uuid/f1f....   /home/Keys/datakeyfile

You see how the entry for “cr_data” was replaced from the one that
produces a prompt, to the other method described that goes automatically.

The “datakeyfile” has 4096 bytes and was produced with “dd”. I should
have detailed notes about the process, but I can’t locate them… sigh.

–
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)

14

I see it also in 13.2 with EFI
Could be a bug.
I noticed if you set the resolution through the yast-bootloader it is hit and miss.
The one that works here is setting the resolution manually in /etc/default/grub.
You will be able to know the supported graphical resolution in the grub shell
by typing

videoinfo

and once you are booted apply it in the
/etc/default/grub

15

I perhaps should have mentioned that the computer where I often see this uses EFI (and currently secure-boot, though whether using secure-boot seems to not make any difference).

You will be able to know the supported graphical resolution in the grub shell
by typing

videoinfo

and once you are booted apply it in the
/etc/default/grub

I tried that. It gave me a blank line for output. But I did get the correct plymouth splash.

I then tried again without that grub shell command, and got three green dots.

That’s not enough tests to be sure, but it does hint at a possibility that this is a grub2-efi bug. I’ll try that a few more times over the next few days.

16

Hello,

I have the very same problem with a classic BIOS. It doesn’t mean that it’s not a grub2 bug though.

17

I have added plymouth:debug to boot command line in order to create a /var/log/plymouth-debug.log. I can see this line in the log:


[ply-device-manager.c:718]                        create_seats_from_udev:Creating non-graphical seat, since there's no suitable graphics hardware

Full output is on http://paste.opensuse.org/view/55782428.

18

Hi,
This is the image of my grub shell’s videoinfo
http://paste.opensuse.org/6914957

As you can see the one with the asterisk is 1024x768, the highest resolution available
but in yast2-bootloader option that resolution is not in the selection. The highest resolution
in the yast2-bootloader is 800x600.
At the bottom of the grub shell image, the edid is 1920x1080
and using it will take you to the green boxes during boot.

I’ve seen somewhere that it is possible to use that custom edid
I haven’t try it not knowgeable enough to go that far.
Maybe somone can guide on using it.

19

Thanks.

I might have typed “video info” instead of “videoinfo”.

20

I witnessed something similar on one laptop of mine.
At power up, only a 1024x768 VESA interface is exposed by the graphics adapter; then a 1280x800 VGA interface is initialised by BIOS.
As I read it, normally Plymouth is slow enough to find the VGA up and running and shows the weavy green wallpaper.
Occasionally though it seems to find only the VESA interface and shows the three square questionmarks.
I didn’t bother to investigate further, but I might do so if somebody is really interested…