Several reboot needed before login is seen

[Sookojan]

I just recently upgraded my computer from fedora 11 => 12.
After moving /home to a separate partition the installation was very simpel.
I only had to reconnect my windows system.
BUT a strange problem has started to appear.
1) Booting to grub is no problem at all ( I have configured grub to be able to select windows if I want)
2) I always see the grub count down on my screen.
3) then there is a lot of discaccesses but the screen with the fedora symbol is not seen and then my monitor goes to sleep.
4) I usually(always) have to turn my computer off and try again at least three times before the screen with the fedora-sign is seen.
5) If the fedora-sign lights up I have no problem with login and use of the computer.

There seems to be a very unstable situation between grub and Xwindows
Has anyone a solution or at least a explanation?

My smoltprofile is pub_02d5479a-2867-46de-beed-655b8e4c2727 and I'm using a HP w2448hc as monitor.

[tashirosgt]

I suggest that once you manage to boot Fedora, that you look in the various logs in /var/log, especially the boot logs, to see if you can find a log for a previous failed boot.

[Sookojan]

Thank you for your advice. I tried it. I checked the boot.log. The log is empty. My guess is that the file is not closed properly when i use the powerbutton for the "shutdown". To follow your advice i edited the commandline in grub to get rid of the graphics.
-- If the boot is a success then
1) First the is a lot of lines written with crude fonts
2) The screen is black a few seconds
3) A second round of lines written i much nicer fonts appear
4) Programs and services starts with (OK) appended.
-- if the display fails, nothing is seens after (2) but a I assume the boot process continues.
It's not possible to open a terminal with CTRL+ALT+F2 to get a nice shutdown.
I haven't found the bootscripts which could be valuable to pin down what fails.

[tashirosgt]

A common bug in several older fedora versions was that the boot log was always empty. It's not empty in my Fc11 64 bit version. I don't know the situation in FC12. See if the other log files contain anything, such as /var/log/messages or /var/log/messages-.... with the date of a failed boot.

What type of video do you have? Is the video built-into the motherboard?

[Sookojan]

I have used a videocamera to see where the boot fails.
1) Even if the boot fails a line with Chicony USB Multimedia is seen but then the screen is dark.
2) If boot is OK then there is a change in fontsizes and then dracut is seen
3) If the boot fails there is
3 lines with "nouveau 0000:04:00.0: unknown encoder!!"
after the line "[drm] DAC-9: set mode 1920x1200 25"



==== dmesg when all works ====

input: Chicony USB Multimedia Wireless Kit as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-5/2-5.3/2-5.3:1.0/input/input3
generic-usb 0003:03F0:0F0C.0003: input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.11 Keyboard [Chicony USB Multimedia Wireless Kit] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-5.3/input0
input: Chicony USB Multimedia Wireless Kit as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-5/2-5.3/2-5.3:1.1/input/input4
generic-usb 0003:03F0:0F0C.0004: input,hiddev98,hidraw3: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Chicony USB Multimedia Wireless Kit] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-5.3/input1
[TTM] Zone kernel: Available graphics memory: 417854 kiB.
[TTM] Zone highmem: Available graphics memory: 2061186 kiB.
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: 768 MiB VRAM
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: 512 MiB GART (aperture)
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Allocating FIFO number 1
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: nouveau_channel_alloc: initialised FIFO 1
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a DAC output
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a TMDS output
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a DAC output
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a TMDS output
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a DVI-I connector
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a VGA connector
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a DVI-D connector
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: allocated 1920x1200 fb: 0x40250000, bo f644ff00
fbcon: nouveaufb (fb0) is primary device
[drm] DAC-9: set mode 1920x1200 25
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 240x75
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: 0x11F1: parsing clock script 0
fb0: nouveaufb frame buffer device
registered panic notifier
[drm] Initialized nouveau 0.0.15 20090420 for 0000:04:00.0 on minor 0
dracut: Starting plymouth daemon
dracut: Scanning devices sdb2 for LVM volume groups
dracut: Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...
dracut: Found volume group "vg_lisa" using metadata type lvm2




================ dmesg when it fails ===========================


usb 2-5.3: Manufacturer: Chicony
usb 2-5.3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
input: Chicony USB Multimedia Wireless Kit as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-5/2-5.3/2-5.3:1.0/input/input3
generic-usb 0003:03F0:0F0C.0003: input,hidraw2: USB HID v1.11 Keyboard [Chicony USB Multimedia Wireless Kit] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-5.3/input0
input: Chicony USB Multimedia Wireless Kit as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1d.7/usb2/2-5/2-5.3/2-5.3:1.1/input/input4
generic-usb 0003:03F0:0F0C.0004: input,hiddev98,hidraw3: USB HID v1.11 Mouse [Chicony USB Multimedia Wireless Kit] on usb-0000:00:1d.7-5.3/input1
[TTM] Zone kernel: Available graphics memory: 417854 kiB.
[TTM] Zone highmem: Available graphics memory: 2061186 kiB.
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: 768 MiB VRAM
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: 512 MiB GART (aperture)
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Allocating FIFO number 1
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: nouveau_channel_alloc: initialised FIFO 1
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a DAC output
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a TMDS output
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a DAC output
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a TMDS output
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a DVI-I connector
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a VGA connector
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: Detected a DVI-D connector
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: allocated 1920x1200 fb: 0x40250000, bo f6601e00
fbcon: nouveaufb (fb0) is primary device
[drm] DAC-9: set mode 1920x1200 25
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: unknown encoder!!
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: unknown encoder!!
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: unknown encoder!![/COLOR]
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 240x75
fb0: nouveaufb frame buffer device
registered panic notifier
[drm] Initialized nouveau 0.0.15 20090420 for 0000:04:00.0 on minor 0
dracut: Starting plymouth daemon
dracut: Scanning devices sdb2 for LVM volume groups
dracut: Reading all physical volumes. This may take a while...
dracut: Found volume group "vg_lisa" using metadata type lvm2

================================================== ================0

By the way a very similar problem has occured earlier

Fedora 10 => never
Fedora 11 => 1 time in 10 tries the boot failed when the mousepointer was seen with the moving cirle
Fedora 12 => 3 times in 4 tries (extremely annoying)

============== Hardware ========================

I'm not very good at hardware but below there is a part of a list from lshw
I also have included a smoltprofile in my first message. But I'm not certain if that information is public.

description: Computer
width: 32 bits
*-core
description: Motherboard
physical id: 0
*-memory
description: System memory
physical id: 0
size: 4025MiB
*-cpu
product: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz
vendor: Intel Corp.
physical id: 1
bus info: cpu@0
version: 6.15.11
serial: 0000-06FB-0000-0000-0000-0000
size: 2400MHz
capacity: 2400MHz
width: 64 bits
capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx x86-64 constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts pni dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm lahf_lm tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority cpufreq
configuration: id=0
*-logicalcpu:0
description: Logical CPU
physical id: 0.1
width: 64 bits
capabilities: logical
*-logicalcpu:1
description: Logical CPU
physical id: 0.2
width: 64 bits
capabilities: logical
*-logicalcpu:2
description: Logical CPU
physical id: 0.3
width: 64 bits
capabilities: logical
*-logicalcpu:3
description: Logical CPU
physical id: 0.4
width: 64 bits
capabilities: logical
*-pci
description: Host bridge
product: 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Controller
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 100
bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
version: 02
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
*-pci:0
description: PCI bridge
product: 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express PCI Express Root Port
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1
bus info: pci@0000:00:01.0
version: 02
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport-driver
resources: irq:24 ioport:d000(size=4096) memory:fa000000-feafffff ioport:d0000000(size=268435456)
*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: GeForce 9600 GS
vendor: nVidia Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
version: a1
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
resources: irq:16 memory:fd000000-fdffffff memory:d0000000-dfffffff(prefetchable) memory:fa000000-fbffffff ioport:dc00(size=128) memory:fea80000-feafffff(prefetchable)

[tashirosgt]

Your video controller is:

product: GeForce 9600 GS
vendor: nVidia Corporation

On the successful boot you got:

[drm] DAC-9: set mode 1920x1200 25
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 240x75

On the failed boot you got:

[drm] DAC-9: set mode 1920x1200 25
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: unknown encoder!!
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: unknown encoder!!
[drm] nouveau 0000:04:00.0: unknown encoder!![/color]
Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 240x75

I think there is something wrong with your version of the "noveau" video driver and/or your video controller. If this is a desktop machine, a hardware guy would be inclined to stick in a new video card and see if that changes things. A software guy would be inclined to check that your version of Noveau is uptodate. If so, try adding options to the kernel (assuming you use grub) in /boot/grub/grub.conf to make the machine use a VGA resolution as it boots.

All I know about "noveau" is what I read on the web. It is an open source video driver for Nvidia chips. As of this date, most Linux distributions don't include it, but Fedora does.

[marcrblevins]

Please go over this Nvidia driver installation:
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=204752

[Sookojan]

Thank you both for your help!
I filed the problem in Bugzilla. If there is interest in the problem from the Nouveau team I think I should keep the bug for a while. If not, I will use your instruction and start using the Nvidia driver instead. I'm not interested in keeping the bug "forever"

Best regards
Sookojan