Getting black screen after switching to desktop session after playing a game.

[darthcloud]

After I play a game and I go into desktop, sometimes I will endup with a black screen. It seem like it don't happen the first time you do it however. So you need to play a game, go to desktop, switch to steamos session and then play another time and then go again into desktop session.

It doesn't happen all the time but it happen to me quite often. Repeating this process will eventually endup with a blank screen on one of the switch to desktop session. Waited like 10min but the screen output was still gone. Also the HDMI signal is still sync with the TV while it happen, so just a black picture is output.

Once in that state I tried to load a TTY session with usual CTRL+ALT+F1 or +F2 without success. Trying to load the X session with CTRL+ALT+F7 also fail.

I'm also able to connect with ssh to the machine. If I reboot or shutdown then the screen will finally come back briefly before it reboot/shutdown.

Note that my desktop account has a password defined. So coming back from SteamOS session for the second time required me to enter the account password. Don't know if that may be related to that. But anyhow it shall work anyway and show my that password prompt.

[paulonarciso]

Are you running nvidia? Because Nvidia have that issue, when switching between virtual terminals or login in and out a couples of times eventually the screen goes blank and a restart is needed.

[darthcloud]

Yeah using Nvidia indeed, I guest then there is an issue already open in Debian?

[paulonarciso]

Its Nvidia drivers issue.

[Tele42]

@paulonarciso happen to have a link to where you found that out?

[paulonarciso]

No need for a link. I have the same issues with a gtx680. And its not SteamOS related it happens with other distros too. Its also very easy to reproduce just log in and log out a couple of times and eventually the screen goes blank. Also when switching TTY it happens the same thing. Everything is flawless with intel integrated 4600.

[darthcloud]

Found some post on nvidia forum about a similar issue: https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/534599/-304-84-when-switching-from-x-session-to-tty-1-6-display-gets-no-signal/

They date back from March 2013 so it's been a while it exist.

Hopefully Nvidia collaboration with Valve on SteamOS might help everyone get a fix for this.

Quite annoying when I'm trying to fine turne some of my game config file since I have to switch between session often sometimes

[aaronp24]

Does this problem go away if you stop acpid by running "/etc/init.d/acpid stop" as root?

[darthcloud]

Yes, that work!

I replicated the issue and then stopping acpid via ssh made the video come back.

Hope this can be fixed, at least I have a better workaround than rebooting.

[aaronp24]

Thanks for testing, darthcloud. The problem is that acpid has an internal limit of 20 sockets that it listens for events on. At least on my system, the first 19 are used by /dev/input/* devices and the 20th is used by inotify. That leaves no room for the netlink socket and the one it listens to in /var/run/acpid.sock, so acpid never actually accepts any connections. Once the connection queue to /var/run/acpid.sock fills up, the X server starts blocking trying to connect to it.

[johnv-valve]

looks related to http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=565908 ?

[paulonarciso]

But, why Intel hardware doesn't have this behavior. And I can log in and out and switch between tty without getting blank screens.
Also, looking at acpid revisions, the problem was fixed many revisions ago.

[darthcloud]

Look like at that time (2010) the fix was to increase from 10 to 20 the maximum connection defined.

Is it time to go to 40? Don't know the impact this might have however on the system overall. Also not really nice to fix something by just increasing blindly a limit.

I don't recall seeing that issue on an Intel system however like @paulonarciso said. But I must admit I'm not usually switching between TTY often on a normal system. SteamOS is unique in that way since you often switch between TTY 7 & 8 to do the usual OS/Apps tweaking stuff.

[GyrosGeier]

Seconded. I get a black screen, until I increase the limit, so I'd be all for raising it.

[Balderick]

Using a nvidia GT520 have same issue with the switch back to desktop. Have blacklisted xpad module to allow mapping of controller for BPM and all games with xboxdrv. xboxdrv is being launched and run from desktop then switch to steam BPM to launch game. After closing game and using switch to desktop am requested for password and the get the black screen and cursor...

I noticed the cursor changing from an arrow to an I when moving mouse around and knew the terminal window running xboxdrv was the only window open so pressed alt + F4 to close window. Doing this revealed gnome desktop with extra window asking for confirmation to kill process by closing window.

[Tele42]

First, this landed: http://sourceforge.net/p/acpid2/code/ci/903271fb387ad4cc630c29810eecaacfb3e21080/ , then it was improved with http://sourceforge.net/p/acpid2/code/ci/6fe0b4fe7b3a1eb476342576f2234b855552782e/ , both before acpid-2.0.20 was released.