[Bug 309784] [NEW] Blank screen, unresponsive console when starting full-screen OpenGL apps

[Daniel Richard G.]

Public bug reported:

Binary package hint: xserver-xorg-video-intel

This concerns xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.4.1-1ubuntu10 in Intrepid.

I have a bog-standard Dell Optiplex 755 corporate PC with Intel onboard
video.  When I start a full-screen OpenGL application, such as Openarena
or Kobo Deluxe (in GL driver mode), sometimes the screen goes black and
the console becomes unresponsive (Ctrl+Alt+F2, Ctrl+Alt+Backspace,
Alt+Sysrq+B, Caps/Num/Scroll Lock). The system still accepts SSH logins,
however, and otherwise continues to run.

I've observed a couple of different failure modes so far:

Kobo Deluxe: Screen goes black, console unresponsive. Application can be
killed with SIGHUP. X server then maxes out the CPU, and
/var/log/Xorg.0.log begins to grow very quickly, about four megabytes
per second. (Note that this is with the program configured to use its
OpenGL driver, and run full-screen.)

Openarena: Screen goes black, white "text-area" cursor appears in center
of screen after a couple seconds, pointer and console remain
unresponsive. X server is pegging the CPU; log file is ballooning in
size.

In either case, the runaway X server can be killed with SIGQUIT. It
restarts, and I get an "Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode" dialog.
A few more clicks gets GDM back up, and I can log in again as usual, but
the video hardware is in a strange state thereafter: If I switch to a
virtual terminal, the screen turns black with white "snow" all over, and
thicker "snow" wherever text should be. (You can sort-of see the login
prompt at the top left, and when you log in, you see the snow-ified
MOTD, etc.). Switching back to VT7 does not return to X; in fact, the X
server is nowhere to be found. No error message in Xorg.0.log, etc.---
the only clue is a bizarre message from GDM in daemon.log: "WARNING:
Display :0 is busy. There is another X server running already."

I will attach some Xorg.0.log* files, the error dialog, and the output
of "lspci -vvnn".

Note: I have experience with GDB and other such tools, but not with
X.org's internals. I would be happy to provide telemetry on this if I am
told where to look.

** Affects: xserver-xorg-video-intel (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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Blank screen, unresponsive console when starting full-screen OpenGL apps
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/309784
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