Bug 800686

Summary: graphics corrupted with 3.7 kernel and nouveau driver on nvidia FX5200 hardware
Product: [openSUSE] openSUSE 12.3 Reporter: Lee Matheson <lee_matheson>
Component: KernelAssignee: E-mail List <kernel-maintainers>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED QA Contact: E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity: Normal    
Priority: P5 - None CC: jslaby, lee_matheson
Version: Final   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: i686   
OS: SUSE Other   
Whiteboard:
Found By: --- Services Priority:
Business Priority: Blocker: ---
Marketing QA Status: --- IT Deployment: ---
Attachments: dmesg file
Xorg.0.log.old before the 1st KDE crash (and automatic X reboot)
/var/log/messages file illustrating 1st boot, kde crash, and my logon to a terminal mounting usb stick to store files to support bug report
xsession errors file showing the errors from the 1st KDE boot, and the subsequent (failed KDE restart where my login as user linux was unsuccessful)
/var/log/warn file

Description Lee Matheson 2013-01-26 09:01:46 UTC
Created attachment 522124 [details]
dmesg file

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686; rv:18.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/18.0

The 3.7 kernel nouveau driver provides a corrupted display when booting to a PC with an older nvidia FX5200 graphic card.  This was tested with the openSUSE-12.3 32-bit beta1 KDE liveCD.  Similar corruption was noted on an openSUSE-12.2 with the Tumbleweed 3.7.2 kernel on an LXDE desktop.  The openSUSE-12.2 3.4.6 kernel (with nouveau) works fine on this same PC with both a KDE and an LXDE desktop.

With openSUSE-12.3 KDE4 (from liveCD) when (despite the kalidascope desktop appearance) I attempted to open a konsole, KDE4 crashed, sending me to a log on screen.  I was able to use <ctrl><alt><F2> to obtain a full screen terminal and I will attach various log messages from that.

There are a number of nouveau messages in dmesg prior to KDE crash. I will attach dmesg in attachment.

Also, after boot to corrupted KDE desktop (with kaladascope colours), I note in the dmesg these entries around the time of the KDE crash : 
[  271.664014] nouveau E[    1191] failed to idle channel 0xcccc0000
[  271.668002] [sched_delayed] sched: RT throttling activated
[  275.240021] nouveau E[    2043] failed to idle channel 0xcccc0000
[  351.592015] nouveau E[    2481] failed to idle channel 0xcccc0000
[  354.800022] nouveau E[    2703] failed to idle channel 0xcccc0000


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Boot to openSUSE-12.3 beta1 KDE liveCD, or upgrade an openSUSE-12.2 Tumbleweed to 3.7 kernel
2.
3.
Actual Results:  
Obtain a kaladscope of colours with mostly unuseable desktop after 'successful' KDE boot.  opening a terminal in openSUSE-12.3 beta1 boot caused KDE to crash.  I note opening a konsole in openSUSE-12.2 Tumbleweed with 3.7.2 kernel did not crash LXDE (konsole opened) albeit text was badly corrupted (albeit barely readable).

Expected Results:  
Expect clean desktop, similar to superb graphics when using openSUSE-12.2 with 3.6.8 kernel.

I took pictures of screen corruption and I will add those in a subsequent entry to this bug report.
Comment 1 Lee Matheson 2013-01-26 09:05:32 UTC
Created attachment 522125 [details]
Xorg.0.log.old before the 1st KDE crash (and automatic X reboot)

Xorg.0.log.old before the 1st KDE crash (and automatic X reboot)
Comment 2 Lee Matheson 2013-01-26 09:07:23 UTC
Created attachment 522126 [details]
/var/log/messages file illustrating 1st boot, kde crash, and my logon to a terminal mounting usb stick to store files to support bug report
Comment 3 Lee Matheson 2013-01-26 09:09:39 UTC
Created attachment 522127 [details]
xsession errors file showing the errors from the 1st KDE boot, and the subsequent (failed KDE restart where my login as user linux was unsuccessful)
Comment 4 Lee Matheson 2013-01-26 09:11:43 UTC
Created attachment 522128 [details]
/var/log/warn file
Comment 5 Lee Matheson 2013-01-26 09:22:32 UTC
Links to images illustrating desktop corruption on openSUSE-12.3 beta1 (from KDE liveCD) : 
http://www.imagebam.com/image/e395cc234038842
and
http://www.imagebam.com/image/09fec0234038850
and 
http://www.imagebam.com/image/83e9b7234038852
Comment 6 Lee Matheson 2013-01-26 09:27:54 UTC
This is a link to the desktop corruption on the same PC when an openSUSE-12.2 Tumbleweed (LXDE desktop) partition's kernel on it was updated from a 3.6.8 kernel to a 3.7.2 kernel. Note the corruption appears similar (but lxde appeared a bit more stable than KDE with this corruption):
http://www.imagebam.com/image/fec77e234038855

Rolling back from 3.7.2 to a 3.4.6 kernel and the LXDE desktop worked fine once again. To me this points to this problem being inside the nouveau driver in the kernel.  There is an openSUSE forum Tumbleweed thread here on this:  https://forums.opensuse.org/english/get-technical-help-here/tumbleweed/482510-3-7-2-18-kernel-broken-nvidia-fx5200-latest-tumbleweed-kernel.html

My apologies for being so slow in testing 12.3 factory releases - in my defense my paid job was incredibly busy last year, and I've been out of continent for a month on vacation, and since getting back I have been ill.

Would it be best if I were to write an upstream bug report on https://bugs.freedesktop.org/ ?
Comment 7 Lee Matheson 2013-01-26 09:32:01 UTC
wrt hardware details of the PC with this problem, here is a link to susepaste with the output of 'inxi -F' (when the PC is running openSUSE-12.1 with the 3.1 kernel).  ... 
http://susepaste.org/17716845

I do note openSUSE-12.2 runs fine on this PC, as does Tumbleweed up to the 3.6.8 kernel.  The next kernel I tried after the 3.6.8 kernel was the 3.7.2 kernel (and the kernel in openSUSE-12.3 beta1) where the graphic corruption problems start.
Comment 8 Lee Matheson 2013-02-08 20:26:04 UTC
I checked the graphics on openSUSE-12.3 RC1 32-bit KDE liveCD (which has a  3.7.6-1.2-default kernel). It has the same corrupted graphics with the nouveau driver and the nvidia FX5200 [NV34] graphic hardware. The "Version" drop down menu does not (yet) allow me to select 12.3 RC1 for this bug report.

I checked two other GNU/Linux distributions that have a 3.7.x kernel:
*     Porteus-1.2 (release candidate version) which has the 3.7.5 kernel (and is slackware based). It booted to a corrupted desktop similar to openSUSE Tumbleweed (with a 3.7.x kernel) and similar to openSUSE-12.3 beta1 and RC1 with their 3.7.x kernels.
*    Bodhi-2.2.0-32 which has the 3.7.0-7 kernel (and is Ubuntu based). It booted to a corrupted desktop similar to openSUSE Tumbleweed (with a 3.7.x kernel) and similar to openSUSE-12.3 beta1 and RC1 with their 3.7.x kernels. 

I also checked the Knoppix-7.0.5 with its 3.6.11 kernel booted fine with the nouveau driver, to a nice 1680x1050 resolution on this same old PC with FX5200 (NV34) hardware (with special desktop effects working nicely).

The above supports the theory I have that the upstream 3.7.x kernel has a broken nouveau driver for the nVidia FX5200 graphic hardware, as even as late as the 3.6.11 kernel the graphics were working ok with the nouveau driver.
Comment 9 Lee Matheson 2013-02-08 20:52:12 UTC
I raised a bug report upstream here: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60516
Comment 10 Lee Matheson 2013-02-12 05:55:01 UTC
I installed openSUSE-12.3 RC1 32-bit from DVD with LXDE desktop on same PC with nVidia FX5200 AGP graphic card (NV34) and it has same corruption as reported above. Nomodeset causing VESA driver to run works (albeit performance with VESA is slow and resolution low).  

This problem with the FX5200 (NV34) and the nouveau driver in the 3.7.x kernel appears to be an upstream problem as many other GNU/Linux distributions are now reporting the same problem with the 3.7.x kernels.
Comment 11 Jiri Slaby 2013-03-13 10:13:21 UTC
Is it better with this kernel:
  http://labs.suse.cz/jslaby/bug-800686/
?
Comment 12 Lee Matheson 2013-03-16 18:50:21 UTC
> Is it better with this kernel:
> http://labs.suse.cz/jslaby/bug-800686/

Yes that 3.7.10-desktop kernel definitely is better. With that kernel installed,  when I boot with a 32-bit openSUSE-12.3 GM version (on LXDE desktop) I obtain a proper GUI with the nouveau driver without the corruption reported in this bug report. Resolution of 1680 x 1050 on my PC with the nouveau driver - and no desktop GUI corruption.  :) 

Again, my PC graphics (same as above posts) : 
  01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation NV34 [GeForce FX 5200] (rev a1)

I saved to my local hard drive dmesg, Xorg.0.log and /var/log/messages from BEFORE and AFTER installing the kernel you noted, and can post them if you wish. I can't see anything of note in them, but then again I likely don't know what to look for.  Let me know if you wish them posted here.

I am still testing this now functioning nouveau on this 32-bit openSUSE-12.3 GM with the 3.7.10-0-desktop kernel you pointed to (i.e. installing video players etc ... ) to try and assess it better.  

But thus far I have no reason to believe it does not work.

Well done and thank you.
Comment 13 Lee Matheson 2013-04-04 10:47:58 UTC
@ Jeri:  Hi Jeri, I note your custom kernel:  http://labs.suse.cz/jslaby/bug-800686/ works nicely on my PC with the FX5200 graphic card.  Is there anything that I need to do to:

(1) have this applied as a patch to openSUSE-12.3 and tumbleweed kernels (if feasible and not breaking anything else), and

(2) have this noted to the upstream bug report I raised https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60516 ?

and/or any log files or other output you would like me to post ?
Comment 14 Jiri Slaby 2013-04-04 19:46:33 UTC
Pushed:
   d48957b..470ecd3  openSUSE-12.3 -> openSUSE-12.3
   2178322..6c8af4a  stable -> stable
Comment 15 Bernhard Wiedemann 2013-04-19 14:00:08 UTC
This is an autogenerated message for OBS integration:
This bug (800686) was mentioned in
https://build.opensuse.org/request/show/172496 Maintenance /
Comment 16 Lee Matheson 2013-05-06 05:58:32 UTC
This is a confirmation post of the fix.  I updated the kernel to 3.7.10-1.4 on my PC with the FX5200 graphics (and a 32-bit openSUSE-12.3) and the nouveau graphic driver works well with it.  

Thank you for the fix.
Comment 17 Swamp Workflow Management 2013-06-10 09:20:34 UTC
openSUSE-SU-2013:0923-1: An update that solves 5 vulnerabilities and has 7 fixes is now available.

Category: security (moderate)
Bug References: 800686,802812,806966,806980,806990,807850,808829,809155,809330,809748,811417,812113
CVE References: CVE-2013-0913,CVE-2013-1796,CVE-2013-1797,CVE-2013-1798,CVE-2013-1848
Sources used:
openSUSE 12.3 (src):    kernel-docs-3.7.10-1.4.3, kernel-source-3.7.10-1.4.1, kernel-syms-3.7.10-1.4.1