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On Friday, February 18, 2023, my Dell XPS 13 Plus 9320 Developer Edition (Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS) applied a set of automatic updates, including a a number of Dell specific updates (e.g., oem-somerville-tentacool-meta:amd64, oem-somerville-factory-tentacool-meta:amd64) and a BIOS update to version 2.0.0. Immediately thereafter, I started experiencing significant problems: bands of random colored pixels across the screen when I move the mouse, built-in camera stopped working, etc.).

I have since discovered (through Googling) that the BIOS update was an error on Dell's part. I don't know about the other updates.

The only suggestions from tech support have been to (a) Manually downgrade back to BIOS 1.11.0 (which I was able to do only with help from folks watching the Github issue above), but that didn't seem to fix the issues, and then to (b) Reinstall the OS.

In terms of reinstalling the OS, tech support first pointed me to this page to download the Dell recovery image specifically for this machine (which sounded reasonable), but when I typed in my service tag number, it said "Recovery image currently unavailable." Then they sent me to the generic Ubuntu installation site. When I pushed back and said that I thought this machine needed a proprietary Dell image to support all of the hardware, they said they "don't have another method to get the Dell image of Ubuntu", but now suggested I try recovering from hard drive, which again maybe sounds reasonable, but all of this conflicting information (and lack of curiosity about the original updates that presumably caused all of this) is making me very nervous.

Has anybody else experienced similar issues? Any suggestions? Alternatively, has anybody had any luck finding folks within Dell support that specifically support Ubuntu?

tcquinn
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    I believe you can try a live session of the generic Ubuntu install to see if your hardware all works. If it does, install it. If not, edit your question to tell us what doesn't work correctly. Welcome to Ask Ubuntu. – chili555 Feb 22 '23 at 21:24
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    You weren't specific as to what Ubuntu 22.04 LTS product you were using? Were you using the GA or HWE kernel stack? (the 22.04 LTS product controls the default & you didn't specify if server/desktop) so may have switched to the later 5.19 kernel and off 5.15; have you tried using the older 5.15 kernel by selecting it at grub? and returning your box to use the GA kernel stack? The kernel stack maybe unrelated; but given that was very recent I'd spend 2-3mins exploring that change as it's easy & doesn't require installs etc. – guiverc Feb 22 '23 at 21:48
  • @guiverc That is intriguing. I don't know enough about the kernel to know what any of those acronyms mean, but looking at /var/log/apt/history.log, I do see several updates like this come through at around the same time as the updates mentioned above: Install: linux-modules-extra-5.19.0-32-generic:amd64, linux-image-5.19.0-32-generic:amd64, linux-headers-5.19.0-32-generic:amd64, linux-modules-5.19.0-32-generic:amd64 , linux-hwe-5.19-headers-5.19.0-32:amd64. Is this what you're talking about? The laptop uses Dell's boot manager rather than GRUB. How could I test? – tcquinn Feb 22 '23 at 22:21
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    Ubuntu Desktop 22.04 LTS defaults to using the HWE kernel stack; meaning at 22.04.2 you upgraded to using the 5.19 kernel from 22.10 which yes was very recent (thus my mention of it). Ubuntu Server 22.04 LTS however defaults to the GA kernel stack being the more stable option, thus server/desktop you didn't mention matters. Refer https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/LTSEnablementStack for details (HWE allows later kernels from non-LTS often better for newer desktop/laptop hardware). Both kernel stacks can co-exist (though some 3rd party closed-source [nvidia..] drivers can prevent this) – guiverc Feb 22 '23 at 22:30
  • I'm not familiar with your dell boot manager sorry; at grub I'd just use Advanced option & select an older 5.15 kernel for experimentation; if it works there exactly as it should I'd add the GA kernel stack as well (esp. if it not using using closed-source kernel modules that prevent GA+HWE) as extra disk space required is minimal, extra bandwidth due to additional packages again minimal for upgrading etc.. but it's your decision.. Others may have different solutions/opinions to my thoughts anyway (Michael Larabel at Phoronix recently suggested many users stick with 5.15/GA I noted) – guiverc Feb 22 '23 at 22:34
  • It appears many other people are experiencing exactly the same issue with exactly the same timing on the same hardware with the same OS: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1455653/horizontal-colored-lines-appearing-on-display-ubuntu-22-04 https://askubuntu.com/questions/1455925/dell-xps-13-plus-9320-horizontal-lines-static-after-installing-latest-release https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron/Horizontal-lines-appearing-on-my-display-Ubuntu/m-p/8353821#M159112 – tcquinn Feb 23 '23 at 00:42
  • I can now confirm that booting with kernel version 5.15.0 via the "Advanced options for Ubuntu" menu item in GRUB prevents the problem (thank you, @guiverc!). The GRUB menu doesn't appear by default on my machine (Dell XPS Plus 9320), but it's there if you hit ESC at the right moment in the boot cycle. Main thread here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1455653/horizontal-colored-lines-appearing-on-display-ubuntu-22-04 – tcquinn Feb 23 '23 at 13:06
  • There is now a temporary fix over on the main thread for this issue: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1455653/horizontal-colored-lines-appearing-on-display-ubuntu-22-04 – tcquinn Feb 25 '23 at 13:03
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    Hi all, we have identified this issue to be related to PSR2 being enabled in the 5.19 linux kernel by default, which introduces the issue for this laptop mentioned in this question. We are tracking this issue in bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2007516. For anyone who have this issue on your XPS 9320 and have the ability to test kernels, please try the test kernels posted at people.canonical.com/~khfeng/lp2007516, and leave your test results in bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/2007516. If you'd like to help but not sure how to, please reach out to me, thanks! – Anthony Wong Feb 27 '23 at 06:43

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