Latest Linux Update Trashed My Display!

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Ron Frye
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Latest Linux Update Trashed My Display!

Post by Ron Frye »

I run LInux Mint 20.2 UMA from Oracle's VM Virtual Box 6.1.26 r 145957 (Qt5.6.2). The update manager told my I had updates ready, so I downloaded and installed them, requiring a re-boot. Now when Linux Mint starts in the virtual box, the desktop screen comes up blank (white) with empty icons. The only way to get a normal display and operation is to re-start Linux Mint (within Virtual Box) using the Software Rendering mode. What happened? By the way, when I tried to run Firefox, it ran alright, but all of my saved bookmarks were trashed. Nuts!

What to do? Am I going to have to live with software rendering for the rest of my Linux life?

Ronald Frye
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agtiger
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Re: Latest Linux Update Trashed My Display!

Post by agtiger »

Hi Ron,

I got bit by this myself today. Here's a few options:

1) Do you have a recent timeshift? You can restore it from a tty console.
CTRL-ALT-F7 is your graphical desktop (which is currently broken due to a bad video driver update.)
CTRL-ALT-F1 gets you TTY1

Get to TTY1
Log in as a user you can sudo up with.
sudo timeshift --restore

Pick your most recent timeshift snapshot and get it restoring.
Once done, restart your linux virtualbox image, and log in, you should be fine
if it was taken before the video driver patch was applied.

2) Do you have a recent VirtualBox Snapshot?
Shut down the virtual machine from the VirtualBox menu:
Machine > ACPI Shutdown
Press the Return key inside of the virtualbox to confirm shutdown.

Or:
CTRL-ALT-F1
Log in as a sudo user
sudo shutdown -h now

Then restore your most recent virtualbox snapshot of the machine and restart it.
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Ron Frye
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Re: Latest Linux Update Trashed My Display!

Post by Ron Frye »

Thank you.

I did try Timeshift, which worked, but as soon as I did another update the problem returned. I'll just live with using software rendering from now on.

Ronald Frye
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Re: Latest Linux Update Trashed My Display!

Post by ajgringo619 »

This is being discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=231&t=354405. Looks like something happened with the latest mesa updates.
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agtiger
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Re: Latest Linux Update Trashed My Display!

Post by agtiger »

Hi Ron,

Glad to hear Timeshift got you back to a working state!

I have another suggestion for you so you don't have to live with software rendering.

Use timeshift to revert again, then bring up the update manager. Before applying updates, right click on the "Mesa VDPAU video acceleration drivers" and select "ignore the current update for this package".

Then go ahead and apply the rest of the updates.

In future updates, if you see the Mesa VDPAU video acceleration drivers appear again, it'll be a newly released version. I would suggest closing the update manager, using timeshift to make a snapshot, then using the Update Manager to run updates (including the Mesa driver.) After that, log out of and back into the Cinnamon desktop, and observe if the white screen issue happens again. If it does, just use timeshift to revert (can be done via logging into tty1 as described in my first reply on this thread), reboot, and log back in. You can once again use the Update Manager to ignore the current offered version of the Mesa driver.

With any luck this problem will get fixed quickly, and you won't have to keep doing this, but this keeps you functional in hardware acceleration mode until the fixed version of the driver is released.

Good luck!
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Ron Frye
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Re: Latest Linux Update Trashed My Display!

Post by Ron Frye »

Thank you all for your suggestions!

Ronald Frye
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Ron Frye
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Re: Latest Linux Update Trashed My Display!

Post by Ron Frye »

The latest Oracle Virtual Box update brought back my Linux Mint display!!! (I no longer have to select software rendering when logging on to Linux Mint via the Virtual Box. Hardware rendering works once again!. Woo-hoo! :D

Ronald Frye
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