[sandy]

I've been happily using XBMCBuntu Eden (11.10) since it was released. My media computer is an Asus P5Q-EM mobo with a Celeron 1.6GHz, 4GB RAM and Verto GT240 graphics card. We run the system nearly every day and it has been rock-stable.

Yesterday when I fired it up the screen displayed a white box with the message ""XBMC needs hardware accelerated opengl rendering. Install an appropriate graphics driver." Since I'd never gotten that message before, I decided the simplest solution was to reinstall the system. That resulted in the same message during the install, followed by the system freezing.

Googled the error message extensively. Nothing helpful there. Lots of people getting that error, but not in relevant circumstances.
Searched this forum.
I then tried the following, with the same result:
Did a clean reinstall (Same error message.)
Downloaded, burned and installed a fresh CD of XBMCBuntu Eden (11.10). (Same error message.)
Replaced the graphics card. (Verto GT240 with PNY 9800GT 1024MB, then with Nvidia Quadro; AFAIK these are all approved for XBMC)
Replaced the motherboard. (Asus P5Q-EM with Gigabyte GA-M68MT-D3, Athlon II at 2.6GHz, 4GB RAM)
Replaced the hard drive (you can tell I was getting desperate).

I then tried a full Ubuntu 12.10 install, installed the XBMC app on top (via apt-get), and that works.(!) But for various reasons I can't use the system that way; it has to be XBMCBuntu. So back to installing XBMCBuntu, but -- I'm still getting the same message about needing hardware acceleration. And, as I said, this system worked perfectly for a long time.

At this point there is no intact system on the drive, so I can't drop into the minimal Ubuntu system to look around, get logs, etc. I am completely stonkered; there's nothing left to replace; I have no idea what is going on. Has anybody heard of anything like this?

[FernetMenta]

run glxinfo in a terminal (export display in case you do this from remote) and check what it's complaining about. run ldd glxinfo to check for missing libraries.

[sandy]

Thanks very much for your suggestion. Unfortunately I can't run glxinfo or any other diagnostics, because the install does not proceed beyond the error message and there is no apparent way to fall back to the underlying system (if the install reached the point at which there is an underlying system). Remember this is XBMCBuntu and installs a very minimal system at the same time it installs XBMC; if the install fails there is no preexisting system to drop back into. The error message box provides a "quit" button, but the system is frozen at that point so no quit is actually possible. Issuing a shutdown by blipping the hardware power button makes some booting information visible onscreen for a moment while the partially installed system attempts to shut down; from those messages I can infer that a partial install occurred but the init sequence could not complete, so a shell can't be launched. I can't tell you the exact point at which the install failed because the messages that appear during shutdown scroll by too fast and can't be stopped by any keystroke I know. Assuming they are being saved to a logfile, which may or may not be true, there's no way to find or read it if the system doesn't load sufficiently to allow me to launch a terminal.

As supplied in the .iso, the entire XBMCBuntu install is silent. Is there a keystroke I can issue during the install that will cause it to display what it's doing? That would be helpful.

--p.s. I feel as if I'm doing something so gigantically stupid to cause this that it's to big to be visible to me. But I do an awful lot of troubleshooting and I've never seen anything like this, i.e., with an install disk which can reasonably be presumed usable, an install problem exists that can't be solved by swapping all of the hardware. If I ever do figure it out, I'll likely owe the list an apology for wasting their time...

[un1versal]

Are you by chance using the XBMCbuntu Intel-Nvidia ISO? Because if not thats what you should be using.

uNi

[sandy]

I don't see any choices in the stable download as shown at http://xbmc.org/download/. The rc3 has two choices, one of which is Intel-Nvidia. I'd tried the rc3 previously, but found it too unstable (repeatedly crashed during playback). Is the rc3 the one you mean?

[un1versal]

I mean this http://mirrors.xbmc.org/releases/XBMCbun...NVIDIA.iso

I dont think it is that unstable, you would have to set it up properly in XBMC as in my signature last link, you could install that and then upgrade from that XBMC version to a nightly XBMC version, which is pretty much as stable as Frodo is going to get.

If not idk.

uNi

[sandy]

That worked! The Intel-Nvidia ISO installed and ran flawlessly on the system's original hardware. I've been exercising it for a few hours now and everything seems fine. Solving the problem closes this thread, but I do wish I knew why this setup suddenly went from a perfectly functioning system to a totally broken one... But I guess I never will.

Thanks, uNi and FernetMenta, for your help.

[nickr]

I suspect your nvidia drivers were borked for some reason. S*** happens. Glad it is working again

[un1versal]

That worked! The Intel-Nvidia ISO installed and ran flawlessly on the system's original hardware. I've been exercising it for a few hours now and everything seems fine. Solving the problem closes this thread, but I do wish I knew why this setup suddenly went from a perfectly functioning system to a totally broken one... But I guess I never will.

Thanks, uNi and FernetMenta, for your help.

Yey!

What could have happened is the driver was corrupted or you had some kernel upgrades or something that broke the original drivers, it does indeed happen and usually reinstalling the drivers does the trick.

for future reference:

Code:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall nvidia-current nvidia-settings

It wouldn't hurt if you used xswat ppa for nvidia video drivers either.

Anyway this is closed please re-edit main post and mark it as solved, by selecting option in drop down menu next to subject line. ++

Enjoy XBMC

uNi

[SorryGoFish]

This last recommendation (to reinstall nvidia packages) worked for me. Thanks a ton.