Distorted splash screen colors on Raspberry Pi 4

[paleahn]

Describe the bug

I used rpi-splash-screen-support to replace splash screen logo.
The splash screen is shown, but with distorted colors on the Raspberry Pi 4B.
It looks as if the red channel is blown out.
I tried multiple different images&monitor, and the distortion is the same.

Image	Result

Apart from the splash screen, everything else looks normal.
On first boot, the default four Raspberry Pi logos display correctly.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. On a Raspberry Pi 4B and fresh any OS installation, exactly follow the README of rpi-splash-screen-support.
2. Reboot

Device (s)

Raspberry Pi 4 Mod. B

System

• OS: Raspberry Pi reference 2025-10-01 Generated using pi-gen, https://github.com/RPi-Distro/pi-gen, 58b9a6bd1e3af179df52d4085dfe481d1c62e8fc, stage2
• vcgencmd: version cd866525580337c0aee4b25880e1f5f9f674fb24 (clean) (release) (start)
• uname -a: 6.12.47+rpt-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.47-1+rpt1~bookworm

Logs

No response

Additional context

While test, manually added console=tty1

[6by9]

Have you added any other config to /boot/firmware/config.txt or /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt?

There were updates to the splash handling in #7088 which is in 6.12.55 and above. That hasn't been released via apt as yet, so you'd need to use sudo rpi-update to get it. (Normal warnings apply of backing up first, or not using a critical SD card).

[paleahn]

No. After flashing the OS to the SD card, I did not add anything to config.txt.

However, in cmdline.txt I did add console=tty1, because without this it looks like the boot process stalls. Without console=tty1, the fullscreen splash screen remains on screen (as expected), but the system does not seem to complete boot – for example, NetworkManager does not appear to attempt Wi-Fi association with the configured AP.

For rpi-update, I will test with it and report back later. The change looks relevant.

[paleahn]

rpi-update fixed the color problem, while console=tty1 behaviour is still the same as described above.
Does this mean that rpi-splash-screen-support is not usable with old kernel 6.1.x on a rpi4?

[6by9]

6.1.x has never had fullscreen bootloader support. I assume that was a typo.

The kernel version in apt (6.12.47) has the basic version that was merged via #7005.

#7086 was raised flagging a few issues, which made me look into it. On top of not handling the file being unavailable, I noted that it only handled rgb565 framebuffers and a few other issues.
Those were fixed in #7088, and is in all kernels from 6.12.55 onwards. We don't backport to older releases, and apt will get bumped to a new release in due course.

Two other issues had been noted under #7087 and #7081. #7081 pretty much duplicates your comments about console=tty1. I believe it is in the default cmdline.txt anyway, so removing it isn't a thing that I'm overly worried about it causing weird behaviour.

Fundamentally this is only extending the basic logo rendering that as standard gives the Raspberries in early boot, giving the ability to put some custom image there instead. It's not some extensive system for loading a bootscreen. If you want that then use Plymouth.