Package: cdrom
Severity: critical
Justification: breaks the whole system

Hi. As per title, my monitor's EDID is not read correctly, and this leads to very
bad things on many linux distros. The debian live cd presents a flashing grey
screen instead of the desktop. Text login works (ctrl+alt+f1), but is not displayed.
Trying to launch in failsafe mode is even worse. The machine hangs with flashing
scroll-lock and caps-lock lights.
It's worth noting that WinXP on the same machine can use the monitor just fine.

This bug is not specific to Debian (Fedora, Ubuntu and Sabayon all have certain
issues)
I have filed a bug with UbuntuBugs, and I have a thread at Ubuntuforums about the
issue.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/read-edid/+bug/991068
ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1981935

If you'd like specific debian generated logs (rather than the Ubuntu ones available
in the above links, I can get ssh installed on a live CD boot and get to them
remotely (submitting this report from there now), or if you need me to install it to
the hard disk (assuming it's possible), I'm happy to do so.

severity 673669 important
reassign 673669 xserver-xorg
thanks

Reassigning to the X people, as they will be able to help more. Also
reducing the inflated severity to something more reasonable. While
this is undoubtedly important to you, many many other people with more
mainstream hardware are using the same software are not seeing these
problems.

Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> (20/05/2012):

From the affected system, getting more info about kernel/X would be
nice. You can gather that from a single script:
  /usr/share/bug/xserver-xorg-core/script 3>/tmp/script.log

and send it to this bug report (673669@bugs.debian.org).

I've seen this numerous times with bad cables, and depending on the OS,
that might work out magically on some of them. You may want to double
check this point.

Mraw,
KiBi.

xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 240, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 800
default connected 1280x800+0+0 0mm x 0mm
   1280x800       50.0*
   1024x768       51.0
   960x540        52.0
   840x525        53.0
   800x600        54.0
   800x512        55.0
   720x450        56.0
   680x384        57.0     58.0
   640x512        59.0
   640x480        60.0     61.0
   576x432        62.0
   512x384        63.0
   400x300        64.0
   320x240        65.0

DAVID HAND <dooby.dave@virgin.net> (20/05/2012):

Yeah (AFAICT) xrandr only knows about what X knows, which takes it from
the kernel. You could try booting with something like video=$resolution
to force something. That should get you a nice console. Then you can
play with adding a new modeline through xrandr, then selecting it for
the appropriate output. Quite a workaround, but that might help you get
a working system for better use until the actual issue (if any) is found
& solved.

Mraw,
KiBi.

Forgot to say I have a laptop with VGA out - with an nvidia go 7600 with
which I could test the monitor bypassing the DVI>VGA adapter, though my
hunch is that the adapter is not the problem. Not only does windows work
with the same hardware configuration, but I remember having resolution
issues since 2006, when the monitor was being used with a different machine
using an ATI video card.

I booted my laptop from the live CD with the CRT plugged in directly, and
while things are better, I'm not sure if everything is OK. I believe the
nouveau driver is working, but the available resolution and refresh rates
are incomplete. Looking through Xorg.0.log there are several bunches of
modelines - not one group has all the correct resolutions, and many appear
to be set at 0.0Hz.
Also, the hex EDID seems to have many 00 in it - could be fine, just looks
strange.

UPDATE
Just been looking at the EDID extracted from windows (using Phoenix I
think). It is different. I will include the two files extracted *.dat *.raw
When extracting using this software, it gave a waning about converting data
from one version to another. Maybe this is where the differences came from.

(via ubuntu 10.04) is the same as in Xorg.0.log (from debian live cd on
laptop) - yet gives accurate resolution choices.

I'm really confused.

Would love to get to the bottom of this. Do you need any more information?

Could be kernel bug too, similar? issue was fixed recently in 3.2.x kernel
(in Debian wheezy/sid). But it was in radeon driver.
You could try 3.2.x kernel from squeeze-backports (for example) and see if
it works there.
Maybe it makes sense to file bug for kernel package and attach full dmesg
from kernel boot with that report.

I'm honestly way out of my depth here.

Does the bug need to be re-submitted? Cannot some of you notify the
relevant people, or alter the package that it refers to?

Good day,
 I have an urgent and profitable business proposal for you. Kindly confirm if you received my previous mail sent.
 Regards,
 Ronney Botha.