Bug 1207776

Summary:	External monitor ceased working in the middle of an X11 session and cannot be reactivated
Product:	[openSUSE] openSUSE Tumbleweed	Reporter:	Rainer Klute <rainer.klute>
Component:	Kernel	Assignee:	openSUSE Kernel Bugs <kernel-bugs>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:	E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity:	Normal
Priority:	P5 - None	CC:	patrik.jakobsson, rainer.klute, sndirsch, tiwai, tzimmermann
Version:	Current
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	x86-64
OS:	openSUSE Tumbleweed
Whiteboard:
Found By:	---	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---
Attachments:	The requested dmesg output

Description Rainer Klute 2023-01-30 19:55:43 UTC

I have been using an external monitor on my notebook (Lenovo Thinkpad P50) under openSUSE Tumbleweed) for years. However, this has now come to an abrupt end. In the middle of an X11 session, at the same moment I started a (third) VLC instance, the external monitor went dark and all windows of my X11 session were moved to the internal notebook screen.

The external monitor was, and still is, not recognized by the machine, not even after a reboot. This does not only happen on the X11 level, but already further down on a lower level. The “inxi” command only shows the internal monitor, no longer the external one. Udev correctly creates all the devices for all the display ports of the notebook, but when I connect the external monitor to the HDMI-1 port, the kernel does not create a uevent. Consequently, no udev event is issued, both according to “udevadm monitor”.

Here are the devices and their states:
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/drm/card0/card0-DP-1/status: disconnected
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/drm/card0/card0-DP-2/status: disconnected
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/drm/card0/card0-HDMI-A-1/status: disconnected
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/drm/card0/card0-HDMI-A-2/status: disconnected
/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/drm/card0/card0-eDP-1/status: connected

Yet, in an X11 session, the notebook somehow recognizes that a monitor is connected: An OSD screen is displayed asking how to configure the new monitor. Clicking on any of the alternatives has no effect, however.

I am ruling out any hardware error. Why? Because the external monitor works fine on a second notebook. And when I boot a Linux live system on my first notebook, the external monitor is recognized and used without any problems. On the other hand, if I use my notebook with the actual operating system with a different external monitor, it doesn’t work either.

I test booted the older kernel version 6.1.1 instead of the (as of this writing) current 6.1.8 kernel. I also tried an older version of the i915 driver. Both measures showed no effect.

Now I ran out of ideas what else to try or where else to look. And as far as I am aware of, the status of connected hardware isn’t stored anywhere where it survives a reboot – or is it?

Comment 1 Stefan Dirsch 2023-01-31 17:58:51 UTC

Hmm. Looks like a kernel (driver) issue to me ... therefore reassigning.

Comment 2 Patrik Jakobsson 2023-02-01 07:27:25 UTC

Please boot without the external monitor attached and with drm.debug=0x1e on the kernel command line. When the system is booted up, attach the external monitor and then capture the dmesg output and upload it here.

That way we can see in detail what is happening when you attach the external monitor.

Comment 3 Rainer Klute 2023-02-01 21:19:16 UTC

Uh, there are no log messages when connecting the external monitor! Here’s what I did:
1. Rebooting the system with drm.debug=0x1e
2. dmesg >log1.txt
3. Connecting the monitor
4. dmesg >log2.txt
5. No difference between log1.txt and log2.txt.

Comment 4 Patrik Jakobsson 2023-02-02 07:22:18 UTC

Hmm, that's interesting. But we still need to see the dmesg output. Can you please upload it here.

Comment 5 Rainer Klute 2023-02-02 09:14:23 UTC

Created attachment 864687 [details]
The requested dmesg output

Sure, here’s the requested dmesg output.

Comment 6 Patrik Jakobsson 2023-02-02 14:18:32 UTC

Looks like the machine has both intel and nvidia graphics. I would suspect the external connector is attached to the nvidia gpu. And it seems you have the "open" nvidia driver installed which doesn't support your gpu:

[   14.121892] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0006 -> 0007)
[   14.126777] nvidia 0000:01:00.0: vgaarb: changed VGA decodes: olddecodes=io+mem,decodes=none:owns=none
[   14.126802] NVRM: The NVIDIA GPU 0000:01:00.0 (PCI ID: 10de:13b0)
               NVRM: installed in this system is not supported by open
               NVRM: nvidia.ko because it does not include the required GPU
               NVRM: System Processor (GSP).
               NVRM: Please see the 'Open Linux Kernel Modules' and 'GSP
               NVRM: Firmware' sections in the driver README, available on
               NVRM: the Linux graphics driver download page at
               NVRM: www.nvidia.com.
[   14.126870] nvidia: probe of 0000:01:00.0 failed with error -1
[   14.126906] NVRM: The NVIDIA probe routine failed for 1 device(s).
[   14.126909] NVRM: None of the NVIDIA devices were initialized.

Adding Stefan to CC.
Stefan, should this card be supported by the new nvidia driver?

Comment 7 Stefan Dirsch 2023-02-02 14:33:38 UTC

For sure no. This is another dup of boo#1207520

Please uninstall nvidia-open-driver-G06-signed-kmp-default package. Then reboot.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 1207520 ***

Comment 8 Rainer Klute 2023-02-02 15:38:51 UTC

Ah, great, everything works fine again without that driver! Thanks for your help, guys!