Bug 26994

Summary:	Mageia 7 sddm greeter freezing up when used with the radeon driver and the Radeon HD 8570 GPU
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	Thomas Andrews <andrewsfarm>
Component:	RPM Packages	Assignee:	KDE maintainers <kde>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	Normal
Version:	7
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:	sddm-0.18.1-4.mga8.src.rpm	CVE:
Status comment:
Attachments:	Journal of a failed boot

Description Thomas Andrews 2020-07-24 03:10:54 CEST

Description of problem:
During testing of the first round of the M8 beta1 isos, I installed Plasma on an old Dell dimension e520. The install went fine, but the sddm login screen will not accept any input from either the keyboard or the mouse. The cursor, which the mouse will move around, looks odd too, not like an arrowhead but more like a capital "I." I had to exit the boot by pressing the power button.

I can log in using run level 3 and then startx, and Plasma seems to work fine. Switching to XDM also works OK.

The affected hardware is, as I said, a Dell Dimension e520, with a Core 2 Quad Q6600, 4GB of RAM, a Radeon HD 8490 video card, a Realtek-based usb wifi dongle, and a wireless Logitech keyboard/mouse set with the unifying receiver.

I tried this on two other, much different sets of hardware, one a laptop with a wireless mouse and the other with the same video card and model of keyboard/mouse combo, and they are unaffected. So far, this is the only system that has shown this problem.

Comment 1 Thomas Andrews 2020-07-24 03:12:38 CEST

Created attachment 11758 [details]
Journal of a failed boot

Comment 2 Thomas Andrews 2020-07-24 03:14:35 CEST

This bug may have been valid with the alpha1 isos too. I don't know because I didn't try one of those with this system.

Keywords: (none) => 8beta1

Comment 3 Lewis Smith 2020-07-25 22:03:54 CEST

Thank you for the report, TJ.
It was a good idea to try XDM, about which I was scarcely aware! Must try it one day. Also, the confirmation "I tried this on two other, much different sets of hardware ... the other with the same video card and model of keyboard/mouse combo" is significant, because the last item looks a likely suspect. Talking of which, have you any way to substitute the KB/mouse on the problem system?

Can you please add also /var/log/Xorg.0.log from a failure situation (Ctl/Alt/Fn to get to a console, login as yourself,
 $ cp /var/log/Xorg.0.log  xorglog.txt       [or whatever]
logout; later attach that file to the bug.

Can you also try LightDM, which is not desktop related, to test further whether this problem really is an SDDM one.

Source RPM: (none) => sddm-0.18.1-4.mga8.src.rpm
CC: (none) => lewyssmith

Comment 4 Thomas Andrews 2020-07-26 05:04:26 CEST

I'm thinking now that it's a peculiarity of my hardware.

There's a 32-bit Mageia 7 Plasma system on the same hardware that I've been using for testing. It has autoboot enabled. Tonight I booted into that, got the many waiting updates ( it's been a while), disabled autoboot, and rebooted. And saw the same problem! 

I tried switching the keyboard/mouse/receiver with one from a machine where the sddm login worked, and it made no difference. The Dell still did not work, while the other machine still did.

This didn't happen when I installed Mageia 7 on this machine - I would have noticed. But that was many months ago, hundreds if not thousands of updates ago, and might not have been the same keyboard/mouse combo at the time, either.

I'll get the log you requested, but not tonight. I need to get to bed.

Comment 5 Lewis Smith 2020-07-26 09:40:15 CEST

Bonne nuit! Thanks for the extra testing.

Assigning to the KDE/Plasma people; changed the severity because it is both rare, and easy to work around (XDM).

Severity: major => normal
CC: lewyssmith => (none)
Summary: sddm greeter won't accept input from keyboard or mouse => sddm greeter won't accept input from keyboard or mouse on a Dell Dimension e520
Assignee: bugsquad => kde

Comment 6 Thomas Andrews 2020-07-30 00:53:05 CEST

There was no response to ctl/alt/Fn. It's as if the keyboard wasn't there at all. Yet I had used the up-arrow and enter keys in grub2 and got a normal response.

Comment 7 Thomas Andrews 2020-07-30 15:28:21 CEST

Same thing with Mageia 7 on this hardware, so I am adding MGA7TOO. This definitely happened sometime after the installation of the M7  Plasma, as the username appears in the proper field. It doesn't with the new Cauldron install.

Also, the fact that it hasn't been reported before now for M7 is a good indication that it is probably unique to my combination of hardware/drivers.

Whiteboard: (none) => MGA7TOO

Comment 8 Thomas Andrews 2020-11-16 20:36:14 CET

As of today, there is no difference in this problem, both in Cauldron and Mageia 7, despite an update of sddm in Mageia 7.

At first I thought that Bug 27601 might be a duplicate of this bug, but as I read more it doesn't seem so. However, I would not rule out the idea that they are related.

Comment 9 Thomas Andrews 2021-01-18 02:08:00 CET

This is still valid as of today for Mageia 7, but I have new information. 

First of all, I was wrong about the video card in this system It is a Radeon HD 8570, not an 8490.

Second, changing the video driver to "Radeon HD 5000 and later without free driver (vesa/fgirx)" allows the sddm greeter to work, though keyboard and mouse response is... sluggish.

Another machine, but with the HD 8490 card, works as it should with the radeon driver. So, it would seem that the problem specifically relates to the HD 8570 chip.

Things are even worse for the Cauldron RC test isos. I will open a new bug for those.

Whiteboard: MGA7TOO => (none)
Keywords: 8beta1 => (none)
Summary: sddm greeter won't accept input from keyboard or mouse on a Dell Dimension e520 => Mageia 7 sddm greeter freezing up when used with the radeon driver and the Radeon HD 8570 GPU
Version: Cauldron => 7

Comment 10 Thomas Andrews 2021-01-19 20:53:52 CET

This bug clarified in Bug 28170.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 28170 ***

Resolution: (none) => DUPLICATE
Status: NEW => RESOLVED