Fixing a splash screen that looks like a barcode

Question

My splash screen looks like a bar-code.

I've tried the Ubuntu 12.04 Live CD, and with it I don't get any errors except the screen resolution. Yet, after installing Ubuntu my splash screen looks like this :

How can I fix this? (Does it look like a driver problem, or something else?)

Answer 1

The mystery of the missing boot splash screen:

I installed Ubuntu 12.4 on my HP and had the same issue with my NVidia graphics card - the graphical boot splash screen in Ubuntu stops working and looks scrambled after the first install or update of GRUB.

I found this solution elsewhere online and it worked so I thought I'd share it.

It is all due to a little variable called $vt_handoff in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file that incorrectly blacklists my graphics card and decides that I am not allowed to see a graphical boot screen.

Simply edit the grub.cfg file and remove all $vt_handoff references in the code.

sudo gedit /etc/grub/grub.cfg

The BASH script to fix the issue again and again:

Here's a short bash script to do the job. Make it executable by using chmod +x and use the script every time after an update or upgrade.

FixBootSplash.sh :

#! /bin/bash
# Fix Ubuntu Plymouth Boot Splash 
# if entry exists for $vt_handoff use sed to search and replace
# write to tmp file - move to original 

checkVT=$(grep -c "\$vt_handoff" /boot/grub/grub.cfg)

if [ ! "$checkVT" -eq "0" ] 
   then
     echo "> Found vt_handoff removing ..."
     sudo sed 's/$vt_handoff//g' /boot/grub/grub.cfg > /tmp/.grub.cfg
     sudo mv /boot/grub/grub.cfg /boot/grub/grub.cfg.backup
     sudo mv /tmp/.grub.cfg /boot/grub/grub.cfg
   fi

echo "> Done"

Answer 2

If you've installed graphics card driver, that might be causing the problem. In such case, go the link: http://kyleabaker.com/2010/07/11/how-to-fix-your-ubuntu-boot-screen/

Generally, encountering a problem in the splash screen means that there is a problem in the package plymouth. You might want to reinstall the package. Use the following commands:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall plymouth plymouth-label libplymouth2
sudo apt-get install --reinstall plymouth-theme-ubuntu-logo
sudo apt-get install --reinstall plymouth-theme-ubuntu-text

For more help in future, you can visit the following page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage