[wplug] gdm: "Failsafe dialog failed"

Brandon Kuczenski brandon at 301south.net
Thu Jul 7 23:18:50 EDT 2005


Today is the day for stupid, inexplicable failures for which google has no 
assistance.  This time: I install the stupid closed-source nvidia drivers 
for my stupid built-in video card and suddenly 3D acceleration works, but 
my screen resolution is vastly reduced.  So I go back to the old 'nv' 
drivers but now I can't login to gdm.  When I try to login, I get the 
error in syslog:

Jul  7 22:56:50 localhost gdm[6383]: failsafe dialog failed (inhibitions: 0 0)
Jul  7 22:56:53 localhost gdm[6383]: failsafe dialog failed (inhibitions: 0 1)
Jul  7 22:56:55 localhost gdm[6383]: failsafe dialog failed (inhibitions: 1 1)

Nothing useful in XFree86.x.log, nothing useful in messages, nothing 
useful anywhere.  The web has about a dozen message posts of other people 
having this problem, but no solutions.

An important fact: other users -- that is, users who did not login with 
the evil closed-source drivers installed -- can still login.  Only I 
cannot.

Here is a comparison between an unsuccessful and a successful login:

# diff XFree86.0.log XFree86.1.log
25c25
< (==) Log file: "/var/log/XFree86.0.log", Time: Thu Jul  7 23:12:16 2005
---
> (==) Log file: "/var/log/XFree86.1.log", Time: Thu Jul  7 23:12:26 2005
47c47
< (++) using VT number 7
---
> (++) using VT number 8
721,726c721,723
< (WW) Open APM failed (/dev/apm_bios) (No such file or directory)
< (==) NV(0): Write-combining range (0xe8000000,0x2000000)
< (**) NV(0): DPMS enabled
< (==) RandR enabled
< (II) Configured Mouse: ps2EnableDataReporting: succeeded
< Could not init font path element unix/:7100, removing from list!
---
> GetModeLine - scrn: 0 clock: 175500
> GetModeLine - hdsp: 1600 hbeg: 1664 hend: 1856 httl: 2160
>               vdsp: 1200 vbeg: 1201 vend: 1204 vttl: 1250 flags: 5

The > represents a successful login; the < represents a failed login.

I have no idea what to do next.  Literally.  I mean... reinstall X?  Seems 
rather extreme. But I'll try that next, I suppose.

desperately,
Brandon



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