Regression amdgpu - Plymouth graphics freezes on Framework 16 laptop and panel replay enablement (kernel 6.11.2 > 6.11.3)

After kernel upgrade 6.11.2 > 6.11.3 on a Framework 16 laptop with Arch Linux, the Plymouth 'scroller icon/graphics' freezes on boot and the passphrase input field is not visible.

Blindly entering the passphrase makes the laptop continue booting after which it seems to operate as usual.

After analysis in issue #3344 (closed) the following observations have been noticed.

• Rollback of kernel 6.11.3 > 6.11.2 makes Plymouth work again.
• Suspected cause is the enablement of AMD panel replay in kernel 6.11.3.
• Applying the 3 panel replay patches on top of 6.11.2 makes Plymouth freeze again.

mentioned in issue #3344 (closed)

mentioned in issue plymouth/plymouth#269

added DC Phoenix bisected panel-replay labels

For posterity; the patch that Arthur is talking about is: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git/commit/?h=linux-6.11.y&id=70cc361f98a7b7f29cff2366c1ba75ac437cf94f

This was added to 6.11.3 to re-enable Panel Replay because the earlier regressions with flicker were fixed.

Depending on the root cause for this Plymouth issue we might need to back it out again, let's see.

I did try to reproduce this issue by:

1. Installing a Fedora 41 image to the Framework 16 I have
2. Setting up LUKS at install time
3. Building/installing 6.12-rc3

Unfortunately, I don't think that amdgpu gets loaded quick enough because I see a text prompt from plymouth for passphrase.

On my system the amdgpu driver is early loaded in the initial ramdisk file.

Sharing the (Arch Linux) configuration file for the ramdisk file creation.

mkinitcpio.conf

Note the entry: MODULES=(amdgpu) which tells the init ram file builder to add this driver to the ram file for early loading.

I will perform a test without this early loading and report back.

Disabling early loading did not change anything.

Zooming in on Plymouth:

arthur@pb450:/etc$ yay -Q | grep plymouth
plymouth-git 24.004.60.r34.gedc7c3ea-1

I recall using the git package of Plymouth, since there were several issues with the non-git package. I will try the regular package:

arthur@pb450:/etc$ yay -Q | grep plymouth
plymouth 24.004.60-9

The regular package (non git) seems to work.

I will report this in the plymouth ticket.

Ah, that's great news thanks.

Although I still believe the panel replay is causing some issues, the current issue does not seem enough reason for rollback imo.

Good luck with other potential related issues.

Ps. I like your responsiveness on issue resolving. That is +1 for you.

I too am experiencing this bug, and spent today bisecting the issue to the same commit Mario linked to, commit 70cc361f98a7b7f29cff2366c1ba75ac437cf94f.

I too experience issues with plymouth, but I also experience similar issues with any app, in this case games, that run full screen under GNOME shell using Xorg. I have verified that the screen is not updated when running Minecraft, and Mame, although the screen is updated when I move the mouse pointer in Minecraft when navigating menus, or in game.

Testing was done with kernel versions 6.11.3 through 6.11.6. I have also built 6.11.6 with the above commit reverted, and everything works correctly.

Have a try with this patch:

https://lore.kernel.org/amd-gfx/20241105202341.154036-1-hamza.mahfooz@amd.com/T/#mc935d1ce19c0ce5ba3eb80c0c7d4e42bd77f3f6f

Should I apply the entire patch series, or is there a specific patch in that set I should test with?

Just this patch is necessary I believe.

mentioned in commit agd5f/linux@ca628f0e

mentioned in commit agd5f/linux@bd8a9576

I believe this should be fixed in 6.12 final with those commits tagged above. If not, please re-open.

closed

Thanks Mario, for following up this issue. If there is no reply from me, then the issue has beautifully been resolved for me. :-)

mentioned in commit nouveau@a8a2a1b5

I'm still having this issue (or at least one very closely related) on Fedora 41 & KDE Plasma using the latest rawhide kernel (6.13.0-rc2), despite that being well past where the fix was committed. Strangely though, if I compile myself I don't have the issue. Both versions have the fix committed so I have no idea why the issue is still happening - not going to reopen because of that but hoping I can get some guidance on what could still be causing the issue and where to look for debugging? Issue has been bothering me and some other FW16 users for a while now so I'd like to get it fixed. (Note - seems arch may have the issue too, not just fedora, according to others)

More info on our issue here: https://community.frame.work/t/fullscreen-games-freeze-on-plasma-6-with-dgpu/61088

My panel freezes when playing full screen videos, at least on Arch kernels 6.12.1 and 6.12.2. The video continues when I move the mouse pointer.

I suspect panel replay, and since I got tired of the panel replay issues, I have decided to disable it by kernel parameter "amdgpu.dcdebugmask=0x400". I will probably leave this for a while and retry each major kernel release (6.13, 6.14, etc) and hope for the best. :-)

Possibly related

#3796 (closed)

Do you know if Plymouth is using VRR?

I don't know if Plymouth is using VRR.

The Plymouth problems started when the AMD panel replay got activated again due to a kernel upgrade. I have worked around the problem by uninstalling the plymouth-git package and installing the plymouth non-git package.

I am a bit tired of the panel replay issues, so I have decided to disable the functionality. Either for the issues of booting, watching videos or other replay issues.