virtual console unavailable with upgrade of cosmic or Ubuntu 18.10

[C Peters II]

Virtual terminal Alt F1-F6 will not display a login prompt. Kernel package 4.18.0-10.11

Using the older release kernel package 4.15.0-33.36, the virtual terminals work as normal.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.10
Package: linux-image-4.18.0-10-generic 4.18.0-10.11
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.18.0-10.11-generic 4.18.12
Uname: Linux 4.18.0-10-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu13
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC1: cp 2209 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: cp 2209 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: LXQt
Date: Sun Oct 21 15:00:23 2018
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=c8402f14-cff8-4ea7-b7c0-e290ac74c235
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-04-21 (183 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 16.04.3 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20170801)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude E6520
ProcFB: 0 nouveaufb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.18.0-10-generic root=UUID=8943f032-77a1-4075-83a8-648f2115f371 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=1
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-4.18.0-10-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-4.18.0-10-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.175
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to cosmic on 2018-10-20 (1 days ago)
dmi.bios.date: 01/16/2012
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: A11
dmi.board.asset.tag: 20KYFS1L
dmi.board.name: 0692FT
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A00
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: 20KYFS1L
dmi.chassis.type: 9
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA11:bd01/16/2012:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE6520:pvr01:rvnDellInc.:rn0692FT:rvrA00:cvnDellInc.:ct9:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Latitude E6520
dmi.product.version: 01
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Ubuntu Kernel Bot (ubuntu-kernel-bot)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Cristian Aravena Romero (caravena)]

Did this issue start happening after an update/upgrade? Was there a
prior kernel version where you were not having this particular problem?

Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel? Refer
to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Please test the latest
v4.19 kernel[0].

If this bug is fixed in the mainline kernel, please add the following
tag 'kernel-fixed-upstream'.

If the mainline kernel does not fix this bug, please add the tag:
'kernel-bug-exists-upstream'.

Once testing of the upstream kernel is complete, please mark this bug as
"Confirmed".

Thanks in advance.

[0] http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v4.19-rc8

[C Peters II (cpeters2)]

> Did this issue start happening after an update/upgrade?

Yes, it happened after the upgrade to Ubuntu 18.10. The subject of the bug report was "virtual console unavailable with upgrade of cosmic or Ubuntu 18.10". The logs included in my original bug report showed "UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to cosmic on 2018-10-20 (1 days ago)".

> Was there a prior kernel version where you were not having this particular problem?

Yes. My bug report said "Using the older release kernel package 4.15.0-33.36, the virtual terminals work as normal."

> Would it be possible for you to test the latest upstream kernel?

Yes. I tested kernel v4.19-rc8 and kernel v4.19.

After the initial upgrade of Ubuntu 18.10 I noticed the problem immediately because I often login to the virtual terminal so that I can killall chrome or killall firefox when the laptop becomes sluggish from running out of memory. I searched online and bug reports and tried a few things attempting to resolve the issue. I also compared cat /proc/cmdline of the two kernels running and a few other things which didn't help.

Another thing I tried after finding some info on either stack exchange or the Ubuntu forums was to uncomment #NAutoVTs=6 /etc/systemd/logind.conf and after checking the logind.conf(5) man page I changed it to NAutoVTs=4. It seemed to do nothing with the new kernel 4.18.0-10.11, and the 4.15.0-33.36 kernel displayed tty 1-4 and 6, but not tty5. so I changed the file back.. Then here's where things make even less sense, tty 1-6 all work now. One thing that was odd is I did a pstree -ap and only tty1 showed up, then logged into tty1, went back to the graphical Lubuntu terminal and all 6 tty's or agetty processes were active. It seems that if agetty tty1 is spawned the others activate when I enter alt-F2 etc...

So this doesn't make a lot of sense because reverting the only change made in /etc/systemd/logind.conf seems to have fixed the problem running kernel package v4.18.0-10.

Kernel testing:
v4.19-rc8
Virtual terminals were working.

kernel v4.19
Virtual terminals were not working. Furthermore the login.conf change didn't seem to fix the issue.

kernel v4.18.0-10
Virtual terminals are working.

In other words the results are somewhat confusing because it seems to be producing random results. It's not clear that the bug is in the kernel, it could be systemd, agetty, system libraries or an interaction of the various components.

[C Peters II (cpeters2)]

The issue is happening again.

Yesterday I removed the test kernels and upon booting up today the virtual terminal (VT) were missing (running both kernel package v4.18.0-10-11 and 4.15.0-36.39). Tried adding NAutoVTs=4 in /etc/systemd/logind.conf and VT's are working again...

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]