[Splashy-devel] Bug#505270: More infor re splashy bug 505270

[tim richardson]

> Tim,
> 
> Is it possible that your problem is related to /etc/splashy/config.xml ?
> 
> Try copying this file to /root/config.xml and purging Splashy 0.3.10
> (dpkg --purge splashy) (from Lenny) and installing the Sid version
> (0.3.12), then copy your config.xml back to /etc/splashy.
> 
> 

Luis, I think you are following a false lead. See below for my "clues", but first, I followed your request:

1) I reverted to 0.3.10 and verified that it worked. 

Then, I copied config.xml as you suggested

2) I purged and went back to Sid. libsplashy and uswsusp were also updated.
After the updgrade, I verified that the bug reappeared (splashy flashes momentarily, and then it disappears, as described earlier in the bug report)
Then I copied the saved config.xml to /etc/splashy

(Of course, bug 504389 appeared after going back to 0.3.12, for which I have submitted a patch http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=504389 )

3) The saved config file made no difference. The startup behavious of 0.3.12 is still broken. 
I actually see this on all three machines running Debian, one of them being an AMD desktop with Nvidia video so it has nothing to do with intel graphics.


**** My clues: ****  :-) 
 
It is very strange that a very simple fix solves the problem:
creating /etc/directfbrc and putting in a path to the log-file as I described earlier.
That is, this content in /etc/directfbrc solves the problem.

log-file=/tmp/directfb.log


Move that file, and the bug reappears. 100% guaranteed. It also fixes it on all three of my machines. 


Clue part 2: change the log-file path to be /root/directfb.log and the bug reappears.

So it only fixes the problem when /tmp is used

There is not actually any log file created in /tmp.

I hope this is a huge clue, but I don't know enough about directfb to make any sense of it.
My wild guess is that without /etc/directfbrc, directfb falls back to a default location that is not writable.
Why would that affect this new version of splashy? Change of execution to premount, maybe?


Also strange: I can not duplicate the error on any virtualbox machines. I even made a virtual machine with a separate /home partition.
Couldn't reproduce it. 


> 
> The new file calls the themes from /usr/share/splashy/themes/. I just
> want to rule out that this is not the cause of your problem. Can you
> send a copy of your initrd (/boot/initrd.img-`uname -r`) and
> /etc/fstab to my email?
> 

I will send my initrd.img via yousendit.com 

/etc/fstab is:

# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0
/dev/hda1       /               ext3    errors=remount-ro 0       1
/dev/hda6       /home           ext3    defaults        0       2
/dev/hda5       none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0