[SOLVED] something wrong with sddm and sound?

Legacy Netrunner 17
1

After the last update, I could no longer get to the login screen. The whole screen just turned white on bootup. Pressing alt-F1, -F2 or -F3 didn’t get me to terminal mode.

I thought maybe it was messed up because my netrunner install was version 15 upgraded through 16 and then 17, and there was some conflict in packages.

So I downloaded a clean iso of netrunner 17 and installed it in virtualbox as a control/test. Upon installation, the virtual install booted fine. However, once I updated it I encountered the same white screen. Looks like something in the recent update is buggy.

I had an older image of my netrunner backed up so I’ve restored that to my “real” netrunner partition on hard drive.

On checking Synaptic, I notice there is an update to sddm.

Meanwhile, prior to this last update that killed sddm, the update before that caused a problem with detecting the sound card. The volume icon just showed “dummy sound card” and there was no sound. I thought maybe the next update would solve it, but instead I got the sddm problem.

I’ll hold off updating this while waiting to hear from anyone who can help.

Thanks.

2

Can you tell me which version of sddm package you have installed ?
Anything in the /var/log/sddm.log ?

3

This is the (working) version of sddm in my restored netrunner partition: 0.13.0-1ubuntu5~ubuntu15.10~ppa2

The log is too long to attach to this post and I’m not sure what to look for.

I’ve therefore copied the log text file to a box.com link:

https://app.box.com/s/5bvgz3wj4qzjnme388glc17dqvvfdti3

4

I don’t see an error here. It says it started up normally.

[quote]Meanwhile, prior to this last update that killed sddm, the update before that caused a problem with detecting the sound card. The volume icon just showed “dummy sound card” and there was no sound.
[/quote]
That is exactly why we switched from 0.13.0-1ubuntu5~ubuntu15.10~ppa2 back to 0.11 .

So basically this should be the same version that the ISO ships with.

Do you have maybe autologin active ?
Are you able to right click / see the cursor on the white screen ?

5

login/sddm issue:

  1. No autologin.
  2. I’m trying the right click/cursor thing on my virtualbox install because I’ve already restored my hard drive netrunner installation. The answer is no, I can’t right click or see the cursor. It’s just a pure white screen.

Here is a screenshot of the screen. I’m serious. It’s just all white.
https://app.box.com/s/4es3jjie6zh4qay2xyyw5l4t6hxqtzgo

You can see the cursor in the titlebar at the top of the screenshot. If I move it down to the white screen, there’s nothing there. Right clicking is not possible.

  1. however, I’m suspecting that part of the issue could be the Maui theme I was using all this while for sddm, which I also switched to in the virtualbox install. From looking at the package version numbers of all the sddm themes installed, Maui seems to be older than most of the rest. Maybe there was some conflict. After restoring netrunner to my hard drive partition, I switched to the Breeze sddm theme, since that was the default theme for netrunner 17.

sound card issue:

I’m a bit confused. Which package was switched back from 0.13.0-1ubuntu5~ubuntu15.10~ppa2 back to 0.11 ?

Or is it a repository/PPA I need to change in my hard drive installation of netrunner?

6

Interesting. I have heard of Maui bugs in its qml files causing white screens which could lead to the problem you describe.

7

OK, I’ll back up the partition again with Breeze set as the sddm theme (also switched the window manager theme back to the default, just in case), and then do a full update.

We’ll see what happens.

8

Have installed the sddm update. Sound working and login screen is fine.

Looks like it was the Maui theme.