Video lost during boot but comes back

I did a fresh install of 64 bit Ubuntu 14.04.3 after installing a new SSD as my primary drive.
Now, during the boot process, the plymouth splash screen (the screen with the dots that go on and off) does not appear during startup, although it shows up fine when shutting down.

Rather oddly, what I get instead is that during the time when I would expect to see this screen, my monitor displays the message "No Signal" for a time. This, of course, freaked me out, but I learned to be patient: before long the log-in screen appeared and everything progresses normally.

Initially, I suspected this was a problem with the graphics driver not yet being loaded, but I didn't select any proprietary driver and the "System details" says I am using the "Gallium 0.4 on AMD RS780" graphics, which is the same as what it said on previous Ubuntu installs.

I did change my grub screen (using the terrific Grub-Customizer), but I've been doing that for several versions with no issues, so I don't believe that's relevant. I did do a "sudo update-initramfs -u" just in case, but that doesn't appear to be the issue. And, since the Boot selection screen contains a graphic background, I have to suspect that the graphics driver isn't the cause.

I looked at /var/log/boot.log, but can't see anything related to graphics, displays, plymouth, or lightdm, and everything seems to end with [OK].

I'm wondering if the increased speed of the SSD (they are impressive) requires some delay somewhere, but I don't even know where to start looking to do that.

I'm lost. What should I be looking for? Thanks in advance for any pointers.

I see this with Ubuntu, but not Fedora. Not sure when it started, but it still happens with 15.04 and 15.10 (development, or whatever they call it pre-release). I haven't really tried to find the cause.

As far as I can tell, this started on Ubuntu with the 3.19.0 Kernel, first used in the 14.04.3 point release, and I suspect it will go away with the 4-series kernel.

Still present with 4.2.0-10

FIXED ...

After much trolling of the web, I found several "fixes," only one of which actually worked:

edit the file /etc/grub.d/10_linux (as sudo of course).

Change the line that reads: vt_handoff=1
to: vt_handoff=0
then issue the command:
sudo update-grub

Or, if you're feeling adventurous, you could do this with sed, but I prefer to see changes I'm making in context so I used sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/10_linux.

I have no idea how or why this fixes the problem, and would love to hear an explanation from anyone who understands what that does, and whether the line for vt_handoff changed from "0" to "1" in the newer Ubuntu 14.04.3 (and, if so, why) or whether it has something to do with the jump in Linux kernel used by 14.04.3.

BUT - it works, and I'm happy now. Thanks all for the comments, and I hope this helps someone else.

CVAlkan: Your finding prompted me to compare grub.cfg files from Fedora and Ubuntu. Fedora never does a vt_handoff (which switches the virtual terminal). Ubuntu is apparently trying to switch to vt7 (which it and many other distros use for the X display), perhaps before loading the appropriate graphics driver kernel module (just guessing here). By the time the display manager (lightdm in my case) is executed, the appropriate kernel module has definitely been loaded. Fedora starts on vt1 and stays on it, using it for the X display. I'm not sure what fedora does to create their pre-display manager graphic.

Thanks for the response.

I actually have a Fedora 21 installation and didn't think to look there for comparison. I'm still stuck with the idea that differences in distros are mostly in the interface/desktop level and the particular utilities and applications that come standard (I know better, but wishful thinking always intrudes).

And, yes, you are correct about the vt_handoff. That makes me suspect that I might have achieved the same thing by simply commenting out the line rather than changing it to "=0" but I'm not going to test that now, since I need to return to actually *using* the machine rather than sparring with it.

Again, thanks.