blocks of random characters spewed during boot?

[Tom Horsley]

New f37 install. Turned off rhgb and quiet boot options. Now
interspersed with the "normal" boot messages, I get blocks
of strange gibberish characters spewed on the screen from time
to time, like something just wrote a bunch of random binary data.

Doesn't seem to hurt anything, but it sure is strange.

Anyone looking at this, or is it too trivial to bother?

[Barry]

>  On 21 Nov 2022, at 15:41, Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt;
> wrote:
>  
>  New f37 install. Turned off rhgb and quiet boot options. Now
>  interspersed with the "normal" boot messages, I get blocks
>  of strange gibberish characters spewed on the screen from time
>  to time, like something just wrote a bunch of random binary data.
>  
>  Doesn't seem to hurt anything, but it sure is strange.
>  
>  Anyone looking at this, or is it too trivial to bother? 
I have multiple systems upgraded and do not see this.
Suspect not one is looking but you.
Is the binary stuff in the dmesg output as well?

Barry


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[Tom Horsley]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:14:22 +0000
Barry wrote:

>  I have multiple systems upgraded and do not see this.
>  Suspect not one is looking but you.
>  Is the binary stuff in the dmesg output as well? 
Doesn't seem to be, just shows up on the screen. I
submitted a bugzilla just for the heck of it (but
it does seem really low priority :-).

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2144563

[Barry]

>  On 21 Nov 2022, at 17:24, Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt;
> wrote:
>  
>  On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:14:22 +0000
>  Barry wrote:
>  
> > I have multiple systems upgraded and do not see this.
> > Suspect not one is looking but you.
> > Is the binary stuff in the dmesg output as well?
>  
>  Doesn't seem to be, just shows up on the screen. I
>  submitted a bugzilla just for the heck of it (but
>  it does seem really low priority :-). 
I would guess hardware problem.
What GPU does the system have?

can you share a screen shot somewhere showing the issue?

Barry
>  
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2144563
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[Tom Horsley]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 18:26:56 +0000
Barry wrote:

>  I would guess hardware problem.
>  What GPU does the system have?
>  
>  can you share a screen shot somewhere showing the issue? 
There is a screen shot attached to the bugzilla. It would be
a very unusual hardware issue since it doesn't happen when I
boot fedora 36, but does when I boot fedora 37. The garbage
also appeared both before and after I installed the rpmfusion
nvidia drivers.

[Barry]

>  On 21 Nov 2022, at 18:57, Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt;
> wrote:
>  
>  On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 18:26:56 +0000
>  Barry wrote:
>  
> > I would guess hardware problem.
> > What GPU does the system have?
> > 
> > can you share a screen shot somewhere showing the issue?
>  
>  There is a screen shot attached to the bugzilla. It would be
>  a very unusual hardware issue since it doesn't happen when I
>  boot fedora 36, but does when I boot fedora 37. The garbage
>  also appeared both before and after I installed the rpmfusion
>  nvidia drivers. 
Thanks i missed that when i read the bug.
So i think its not a gpu issue. That is text being output to the console.
Looks like it is in the initrd so the nvidia driver is not loaded yet i think.

Is the gibberish always in the same place in the boot sequence?
Is the gibberish the same each time?

I checked on my rtx3060 and i do have the issue.

I wonder if it effects only some nvidia cards?

Barry
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[Tom Horsley]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 22:31:02 +0000
Barry wrote:

>  Is the gibberish always in the same place in the boot sequence?
>  Is the gibberish the same each time? 
Hard to know for sure, but it seems randomly placed, though it
looks kind of like the same sort of gibberish everywhere it appears.

[Felix Miata]

None of my installations use rhgb, quiet, splash=silent, or plymouth, and I've not
noticed this. However, there's not much to notice since simpledrm showed up. The
screen stays black many times longer than it spends displaying a short list of
boot messages before X starts.

My initrds exclude i18n, which I suppose could play a part in this.
-- 
Evolution as taught in public schools is, like religion,
	based on faith, not based on science.

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata

[Tom Horsley]

I added a note to the bugzilla yesterday:

Since I got the update to kernel 6.0.9-300.fc37.x86_64,
I don't see any trash on the screen (in the one boot I've
done so far, hopefully in future boots as well).

[George N. White III]

On Wed, Nov 23, 2022 at 9:57 AM Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  I added a note to the bugzilla yesterday:
>
>  Since I got the update to kernel 6.0.9-300.fc37.x86_64,
>  I don't see any trash on the screen (in the one boot I've
>  done so far, hopefully in future boots as well).
>  
It could be helpful to see if the "trash" is still present in the previous
kernel.  Also, with the new kernal do you see a readable message in
the place where you were getting "trash"?

-- 
George N. White III

[Tom Horsley]

On Wed, 23 Nov 2022 10:03:54 -0400
George N. White III wrote:

>  It could be helpful to see if the "trash" is still present
> in the previous
>  kernel.  Also, with the new kernal do you see a readable message in
>  the place where you were getting "trash"? 
It was definitely still there in 6.0.8-300.fc37.x86_64, it always seemed
to come out in random spots, so there isn't any way to tell if there
is a real message now, though I suspect not since the trash never
showed up in logs, only on the screen.

[George N. White III]

On Wed, Nov 23, 2022 at 10:18 AM Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Wed, 23 Nov 2022 10:03:54 -0400
>  George N. White III wrote:
>
>  > It could be helpful to see if the "trash" is still present in the
>  previous
>  > kernel.  Also, with the new kernal do you see a readable message in
>  > the place where you were getting "trash"?
>
>  It was definitely still there in 6.0.8-300.fc37.x86_64, it always seemed
>  to come out in random spots, so there isn't any way to tell if there
>  is a real message now, though I suspect not since the trash never
>  showed up in logs, only on the screen.
>  
If the "trash" was due to font mis-configuration it may look like ordinary
text in logs.

-- 
George N. White III

[Lester Petrie]

On 11/21/2022 12:23 PM, Tom Horsley wrote:
>  On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:14:22 +0000
>  Barry wrote:
>  
> > I have multiple systems upgraded and do not see this.
> > Suspect not one is looking but you.
> > Is the binary stuff in the dmesg output as well?
>  
>  Doesn't seem to be, just shows up on the screen. I
>  submitted a bugzilla just for the heck of it (but
>  it does seem really low priority :-).
>  
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2144563 
I have an old machine running F36 that does the same thing. The only 
effect I have observed is that it is harder to follow what is taking 
place during the boot. I run grub2-mkconfig on that machine and have the 
rpmfusion nvidia drivers installed, so I thought it was probably related 
to one of those.

[stan]

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 12:23:55 -0500
Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:14:22 +0000
>  Barry wrote:
>  
>  > I have multiple systems upgraded and do not see this.
>  > Suspect not one is looking but you.
>  > Is the binary stuff in the dmesg output as well?  
>  
>  Doesn't seem to be, just shows up on the screen. I
>  submitted a bugzilla just for the heck of it (but
>  it does seem really low priority :-).
>  
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2144563 
I took a look at your attached output in that bugzilla, and I don't see
any random characters in that output.  Everything that I see is valid
text. I'm not running nvidia (radeon), so maybe it has something to do
with the interaction of the nvidia driver and the simple framebuffer
that has replaced the traditional frame buffers.

I don't see anything unusual on my system when I boot either.

[Tom Horsley]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2022 08:55:02 -0700
stan via users wrote:

>  I took a look at your attached output in that bugzilla, and I
> don't see
>  any random characters in that output. 
Talking about the screen shot or the journal dump? The random trash
doesn't show up in the journal, the screen shot is the only place it
appears. (Right after the line saying Finished initrd-cleanup).

[stan]

On Tue, 22 Nov 2022 11:15:32 -0500
Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Tue, 22 Nov 2022 08:55:02 -0700
>  stan via users wrote:
>  
>  > I took a look at your attached output in that bugzilla, and I don't
>  > see any random characters in that output.  
>  
>  Talking about the screen shot or the journal dump? The random trash
>  doesn't show up in the journal, the screen shot is the only place it
>  appears. (Right after the line saying Finished initrd-cleanup). 
You were right, I was looking at the link in the comment.  When I
looked at the screenshot, yes, there are random characters there.  I
definitely don't see those kinds of characters here when I boot.

[George N. White III]

On Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 1:24 PM Tom Horsley <horsley1953(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 17:14:22 +0000
>  Barry wrote:
>
>  > I have multiple systems upgraded and do not see this.
>  > Suspect not one is looking but you.
>  > Is the binary stuff in the dmesg output as well?
>
>  Doesn't seem to be, just shows up on the screen. I
>  submitted a bugzilla just for the heck of it (but
>  it does seem really low priority :-).
>
>  https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2144563
>
>  I always turn off "rhgb" and  "quiet" when I install a RedHat system,
> and 
can't recall ever seeing anything but plain text, although many of my
systems run "headless" unless troubleshooting is required. I suspect
either a message that use non-ASCII text or some stray control characters
that change the character set.

It is premature to say this is low priority until we know more.  I assume
there
is some effort to support boot messages in languages other than English. It
might
be useful to see if the "random" characters occur with all non-essential
devices
removed.

-- 
George N. White III

Hi.

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 10:41:27 -0500 Tom Horsley wrote:
>  Anyone looking at this, or is it too trivial to bother? 
I see that too, and since at least f36. Haven't investigate at all :-(

-- 
francis

[Thomas]

Hello,

I have seen odd characters at shutdown, never looked much at start up, see the question I
had posted on stackexchange:
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/718066/weird-characters-and-%C5%...

TL;DR, I don't see them when I shutdown from a virtual terminal even if I have a
graphical session running, so my guess is that it's null bytes and other garbage
thrown when some graphical process or session does is not shut down cleanly. I tend to not
see them if I shut down shortly after having booted.

Not sure if you mean the same by random characters.

Thomas

On Mon, 21 Nov 2022, at 20:19, Francis.Montagnac(a)inria.fr wrote:
> Hi.
>
> On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 10:41:27 -0500 Tom Horsley wrote:
>> Anyone looking at this, or is it too trivial to bother?
>
> I see that too, and since at least f36. Haven't investigate at all :-(
>
> -- 
> francis
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[Charles Dennett]

On 11/21/22 14:19, Francis.Montagnac(a)inria.fr wrote:
>  
>  Hi.
>  
>  On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 10:41:27 -0500 Tom Horsley wrote:
> > Anyone looking at this, or is it too trivial to bother?
>  
>  I see that too, and since at least f36. Haven't investigate at all :-(
>   
Yeah, I see that too.  I think I've seen it for quite a while (several 
versions of Fedora I believe).  It screams by at boot time and I've 
never bothered to investigate.  Maybe some uninitialized memory? 
Following the bugzilla out of curiosity.

Charlie D.

[Patrick O'Callaghan]

On Mon, 2022-11-21 at 14:51 -0500, Charles Dennett wrote:
>  
>  
>  On 11/21/22 14:19, Francis.Montagnac(a)inria.fr wrote:
>  > 
>  > Hi.
>  > 
>  > On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 10:41:27 -0500 Tom Horsley wrote:
>  > > Anyone looking at this, or is it too trivial to bother?
>  > 
>  > I see that too, and since at least f36. Haven't investigate at all
>  > :-(
>  > 
>  
>  Yeah, I see that too.  I think I've seen it for quite a while
>  (several 
>  versions of Fedora I believe).  It screams by at boot time and I've 
>  never bothered to investigate.  Maybe some uninitialized memory? 
>  Following the bugzilla out of curiosity. 
I'm way out of my comfort zone here, but could it be related to KMS
(Kernel Mode-Setting):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_setting

poc

[Barry]

>  On 21 Nov 2022, at 22:15, Patrick O'Callaghan
> <pocallaghan(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:
>  
>  On Mon, 2022-11-21 at 14:51 -0500, Charles Dennett wrote:
> > 
> > 
> >> On 11/21/22 14:19, Francis.Montagnac(a)inria.fr wrote:
> >> 
> >> Hi.
> >> 
> >> On Mon, 21 Nov 2022 10:41:27 -0500 Tom Horsley wrote:
> >>> Anyone looking at this, or is it too trivial to bother?
> >> 
> >> I see that too, and since at least f36. Haven't investigate at all
> >> :-(
> >> 
> > 
> > Yeah, I see that too.  I think I've seen it for quite a while
> > (several 
> > versions of Fedora I believe).  It screams by at boot time and I've 
> > never bothered to investigate.  Maybe some uninitialized memory? 
> > Following the bugzilla out of curiosity.
>  
>  I'm way out of my comfort zone here, but could it be related to KMS
>  (Kernel Mode-Setting): 
Unlikely. The console has been setup. The quality of the text is good,
so it does not look like default low res vga.

Barry
>  
>  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_setting
>  
>  poc 
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[Samuel Sieb]

On 11/21/22 07:41, Tom Horsley wrote:
>  New f37 install. Turned off rhgb and quiet boot options. Now
>  interspersed with the "normal" boot messages, I get blocks
>  of strange gibberish characters spewed on the screen from time
>  to time, like something just wrote a bunch of random binary data.
>  
>  Doesn't seem to hurt anything, but it sure is strange. 
I've seen this with F36 on every system I've checked.  As you say, it 
doesn't seem to be harmful.  (I first noticed it on an old computer and 
thought there was memory corruption or something.)  I only noticed it 
because the install boots don't hide it with Plymouth.  But when I 
checked other systems, I saw it there as well.