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Bug 477912 - >=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-3.4.9 - uvesafb prints "@�^B^O^C�^B^O^C" on NVIDIA
Summary: >=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-3.4.9 - uvesafb prints "@�^B^O^C�^B^O^C" on NVIDIA
Status: RESOLVED NEEDINFO
Alias: None
Product: Gentoo Linux
Classification: Unclassified
Component: [OLD] Core system (show other bugs)
Hardware: AMD64 Linux
: Normal normal
Assignee: Gentoo Kernel Bug Wranglers and Kernel Maintainers
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-07-23 14:54 UTC by Vince C.
Modified: 2014-09-27 19:52 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


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Description Vince C. 2013-07-23 14:54:00 UTC
Due to the presence of an nVidia card the system log turns binary when uvesafb outputs the following information:

uvesafb: NVIDIA Corporation, BIOS-P/N@N8447, GW-CLK@�^B^O^C�^B^O^C, OEM: NVIDIA, VBE v3.0

Browsing the message log with "less" turns on HEX mode because of this. Viewing the log with "nano -v" works but it's somewhat annoying. I've been having this issue for quite some time now.

My kernel is gentoo-sources-3.4.9 but IIRC it also happens on 3.9.* .
Comment 1 Jeroen Roovers (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2013-07-23 17:30:24 UTC
(In reply to Vince C. from comment #0)
> Browsing the message log with "less" turns on HEX mode because of this.

Please post your `emerge --info' output in a comment.
Comment 2 Tom Wijsman (TomWij) (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2013-08-12 22:09:46 UTC
(In reply to Vince C. from comment #0)
> My kernel is gentoo-sources-3.4.9

Is there any particular reason you run an old kernel, 3.4.57 is the latest version in that branch; it's quite a difference.

> but IIRC it also happens on 3.9.*

Could you try more recent versions?

1. =sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-3.10.6 (Upstream latest stable kernel)
2. =sys-kernel/git-sources-3.11_rc5 (Upstream latest development kernel)

Please also post the requested `emerge --info`.

On a side note, I wonder if this is a bug is with uvesafb, syslog or less...

Thank you very much in advance.
Comment 3 Tom Wijsman (TomWij) (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2013-10-14 15:47:43 UTC
(In reply to Tom Wijsman (TomWij) from comment #2)
> (In reply to Vince C. from comment #0)
> > My kernel is gentoo-sources-3.4.9
> 
> Is there any particular reason you run an old kernel, 3.4.57 is the latest
> version in that branch; it's quite a difference.
> 
> > but IIRC it also happens on 3.9.*
> 
> Could you try more recent versions?
> 
> 1. =sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-3.10.6 (Upstream latest stable kernel)
> 2. =sys-kernel/git-sources-3.11_rc5 (Upstream latest development kernel)
> 
> Please also post the requested `emerge --info`.
Comment 4 Vince C. 2013-10-15 08:12:29 UTC
Sorry for the delay.

(In reply to Tom Wijsman (TomWij) from comment #2)
> (In reply to Vince C. from comment #0)
> > My kernel is gentoo-sources-3.4.9
> 
> Is there any particular reason you run an old kernel, 3.4.57 is the latest
> version in that branch; it's quite a difference.

Just that I'm not an upgrade freak :D .


> > but IIRC it also happens on 3.9.*
> 
> Could you try more recent versions?
> 
> 1. =sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-3.10.6 (Upstream latest stable kernel)
> 2. =sys-kernel/git-sources-3.11_rc5 (Upstream latest development kernel)
> 
> Please also post the requested `emerge --info`.

I'm not on my machine right now but will try remembering to provide --info stuff :-/ . Note that I've been having that issue with nVidia hardware for as long as I can remember, i.e. years. So it might not be specific to that very kernel.
Comment 5 Vince C. 2013-10-15 19:07:18 UTC
(In reply to Jeroen Roovers from comment #1)
> (In reply to Vince C. from comment #0)
> > Browsing the message log with "less" turns on HEX mode because of this.
> 
> Please post your `emerge --info' output in a comment.

Here you go:

$ emerge --info
Portage 2.1.11.55 (default/linux/amd64/13.0/desktop, gcc-4.5.4, glibc-2.15-r3, 3.4.9-gentoo-nvidia x86_64)
=================================================================
System uname: Linux-3.4.9-gentoo-nvidia-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-_i3-2100_CPU_@_3.10GHz-with-gentoo-2.1
KiB Mem:     4017960 total,   1135628 free
KiB Swap:    4194300 total,   4194300 free
Timestamp of tree: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 09:00:01 +0000
ld GNU ld (GNU Binutils) 2.22
ccache version 3.1.8 [enabled]
app-shells/bash:          4.2_p37
dev-lang/python:          2.7.3-r2, 3.2.3
dev-util/ccache:          3.1.8
dev-util/cmake:           2.8.9
dev-util/pkgconfig:       0.28
sys-apps/baselayout:      2.1-r1
sys-apps/openrc:          0.11.8
sys-apps/sandbox:         2.5
sys-devel/autoconf:       2.13, 2.69
sys-devel/automake:       1.11.6, 1.12.6
sys-devel/binutils:       2.22-r1
sys-devel/gcc:            4.5.4
sys-devel/gcc-config:     1.7.3
sys-devel/libtool:        2.4-r1
sys-devel/make:           3.82-r4
sys-kernel/linux-headers: 3.4-r2 (virtual/os-headers)
sys-libs/glibc:           2.15-r3
Repositories: gentoo crossdev local
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64"
ACCEPT_LICENSE="* -@EULA ut2003"
CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=native -msse4.1 -msse4.2 -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/php/apache2-php5.3/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5.3/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5.3/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/splash /etc/terminfo"
CXXFLAGS="-march=native -msse4.1 -msse4.2 -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/portage/distfiles"
FCFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"
FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs ccache config-protect-if-modified distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles merge-sync news parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch"
FFLAGS="-O2 -pipe"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org"
LANG="fr_BE.UTF-8"
LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed"
MAKEOPTS="-j5"
PKGDIR="/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/portage/tmp"
PORTDIR="/portage/portage.d"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/portage/overlay.d/crossdev /portage/overlay.d/local"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X a52 aac acl acpi alsa amd64 avahi berkdb bindist branding bzip2 cairo cdda cddb cdr cli consolekit cracklib crypt cups cxx dbus dirac dri dts dvd dvdr emboss encode exif fam firefox flac fortran g3dvl gdbm gif gnome-keyring gnutls gpm gstreamer gtk iconv id3tag ipv6 jpeg lcms libnotify lzma lzo mad mmx mmxext mng modules mp3 mp4 mpeg mudflap multilib musepack ncurses nls nntp nptl offensive ogg opengl openmp pam pango pcre pdf png policykit ppds qt3support readline schroedinger sdl session slang spell sse sse2 ssl ssse3 startup-notification svg tcpd theora threads tiff truetype udev udisks unicode upower usb v4l vaapi vdpau vorbis wavpack wxwidgets x264 xcb xml xv xvid zeroconf zlib" ABI_X86="64" ALSA_CARDS="hda-intel" APACHE2_MODULES="authn_core authz_core socache_shmcb unixd actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache cgi cgid dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="kexi words flow plan sheets stage tables krita karbon braindump author" CAMERAS="mustek" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ubx" INPUT_DEVICES="linuxinput keyboard mouse evdev wacom" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LIBREOFFICE_EXTENSIONS="presenter-console presenter-minimizer" LINGUAS="fr en_GB en" OFFICE_IMPLEMENTATION="libreoffice" PHP_TARGETS="php5-4" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python2_7" PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_2" QEMU_SOFTMMU_TARGETS="arm i386 x86_64" QEMU_USER_TARGETS="arm i386 x86_64" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby19 ruby18" SANE_BACKENDS="gt68xx artec artec_eplus48k mustek mustek_pp mustek_usb plustek plustek_pp" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia nouveau intel fbdev vesa" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account"
Unset:  CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, USE_PYTHON
Comment 6 Vince C. 2013-10-17 20:59:16 UTC
(In reply to Tom Wijsman (TomWij) from comment #2)
> (In reply to Vince C. from comment #0)
> Could you try more recent versions?
> 
> 1. =sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-3.10.6 (Upstream latest stable kernel)

Done. Unchanged.

From /var/log/messages:
uvesafb: NVIDIA Corporation, BIOS-P/N@N8447, GW-CLK@<9B>^B^O^C<9B>^B^O^C, OEM: NVIDIA, VBE v3.0

$ uname -r 3.10.7-gentoo-r1-nvidia

I could go as far as trying with 3.11 but I am convinced it'll be the same. Given how long I've been getting this issue with Gentoo and machines that have an nVidia card... I believe the problem indeed lies in uvesafb.
Comment 7 Vince C. 2013-10-18 08:00:58 UTC
I guess you have your own syntax or conventions but reading:

=sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-[3.4.9,3.10.7] ...

one might think this issue is limited to those kernels but it's definitely *not* and it will likely lead to confusion.

You could add ellipsis to the list.

Just my 2¢.
Comment 8 Tom Wijsman (TomWij) (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2013-10-18 08:14:11 UTC
It is known to be broken on those kernels; we don't know about the rest, so we can't state anything about that, we use the whiteboard to mention the version that fixes it.
Comment 9 Vince C. 2013-10-18 12:30:25 UTC
(In reply to Tom Wijsman (TomWij) from comment #8)
> It is known to be broken on those kernels; we don't know about the rest, so
> we can't state anything about that, we use the whiteboard to mention the
> version that fixes it.

I'd rephrase a little: it was *confirmed* [by Gentoo maintainers eventually] to be broken on those kernels while it is *known* by at least one other person (me, that is) to be also broken on other kernels, just that it hasn't been reported so far.

Hence my suggestion [ (list of confirmed kernels), ellipsis ] to indicate there just might be other, non-confirmed kernels where it applies. Ellipsis should IMHO prevent a user from wondering if he needs to file a new, i.e. duplicate, bug, for instance.
Comment 10 Tom Wijsman (TomWij) (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2013-11-16 16:38:53 UTC
*** Bug 487328 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 11 Tom Wijsman (TomWij) (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2013-11-16 16:43:46 UTC
Hello again.

Let's give this one more shot: Can you try the latest 3.12.* kernel?

If it doesn't work, I suggest filing this upstream; I'm not so sure whether you can report this at the kernel bugzilla though as this is a NVIDIA problem, you might want to try file this with NVIDIA. Make sure to use nvidia-bug-report.sh to provide them with enough data.

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/

Can you please let us know the URL of the upstream bug?

Good luck and thank you in advance.
Comment 12 Vince C. 2013-11-17 11:00:15 UTC
(In reply to Tom Wijsman (TomWij) from comment #11)
> Hello again.
> 
> Let's give this one more shot: Can you try the latest 3.12.* kernel?

Will try that...


> If it doesn't work, I suggest filing this upstream;

Hmmm... I thought I had read it was best to centralize all bugs here at Gentoo Bugzilla and Gentoo maintainers would forward upstream whenever necessary *puzzled* . Well, I already had some contacts with uvesafb maintainer, Michal Januszewski. Just that I'm not sure he's still working on it now. Anyway...


> [...] I'm not so sure whether
> you can report this at the kernel bugzilla though as this is a NVIDIA
> problem, you might want to try file this with NVIDIA. Make sure to use
> nvidia-bug-report.sh to provide them with enough data.
> 
> https://devtalk.nvidia.com/
> https://bugzilla.kernel.org/
> 
> Can you please let us know the URL of the upstream bug?
> 
> Good luck and thank you in advance.

Tom, come on, this is honestly *not* an NVIDIA bug. It relates to uvesafb only. Blacklisting nvidia proprietary BLOB still exhibits this issue, which proves one of the clues the nVidia BLOB has nothing to do with that. Another clue is that the garbage string is inserted into the kernel log *way before* the nvidia BLOB is loaded eventually (on my system the latter is loaded only when X starts). The issue also happens when I do not start X, means even when the nVidia BLOB is *not* loaded.

So clearly, no, I won't bother filing a bug at NVidia for I expect they're most probably going to reject it, being a Linux-kernel-related issue, aka uvesafb.
Comment 13 Vince C. 2013-11-17 12:01:42 UTC
***ADDENDUM***

I remember I already had investigated a little bit on that issue and it all boils down to this line (#466) in uvesafb.c:

        if (par->vbe_ib.oem_product_rev_ptr)
                printk("%s, ",
                        ((char *)task->buf) + par->vbe_ib.oem_product_rev_ptr);

So it looks like the product revision is not quite as expected by uvesafb code -- shall I say not standard-conformant? A simple workaround could be to exclude that part when from an NVIDIA card. A deeper analysis should, IMHO tell how that very parameter (the string @ vbe_ib.oem_product_rev_ptr) is expected to look like.

Fact is Spock (aka Michał Januszewski) has last updated his web page in 2009 (http://mjanusz.wordpress.com/) and no longer appears at http://dev.gentoo.org/~spock/projects/uvesafb/ . Guess we'll have to put in some workaround first.
Comment 14 josef.95 2014-01-20 04:36:02 UTC
Hm, it works fine for me on amd64 System

from dmesg
kernel: uvesafb: NVIDIA Corporation, G92 Board - 03930004, Chip Rev   , OEM: NVIDIA, VBE v3.0
kernel: uvesafb: VBIOS/hardware supports DDC2 transfers
kernel: uvesafb: monitor limits: vf = 60 Hz, hf = 81 kHz, clk = 170 MHz
kernel: uvesafb: scrolling: redraw
kernel: uvesafb: framebuffer at 0xf9000000, mapped to 0xffffc90010100000, using 10240k, total 14336k

with
emerge -pvq klibc v86d gentoo-sources
[ebuild   R   ] dev-libs/klibc-2.0.3-r1  USE="-custom-cflags -debug {-test}" 
[ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/v86d-0.1.10  USE="(x86emu) -debug" 
[ebuild   R   ] sys-kernel/gentoo-sources-3.10.27  USE="-build -deblob -experimental -symlink"

uname -r
3.10.27-gentoo-64-nativ-s1
Comment 15 Vince C. 2014-08-16 12:19:39 UTC
(In reply to josef.95 from comment #14)
> Hm, it works fine for me on amd64 System
> 
> from dmesg
> kernel: uvesafb: NVIDIA Corporation, G92 Board - 03930004, Chip Rev   , OEM:
> NVIDIA, VBE v3.0
> ...

I wouldn't say "it works" rather than you are luckily experiencing an early binary zero in the card string identifier. If you hexdump your log file at that very location, what's there?