Login screen locks up; mouse & keyboard are disabled

[Garry Leach]

Binary package hint: gdm

Ubuntu 10.04
GDM 2.30.0-0ubuntu5

On 07/05/2010, I upgraded from Ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04.

When I tried to boot, I had problems at the login screen:
I get either of the following:
. A locked screen with no mouse or keyboard capability. So I press & hold the start button for 6 seconds to stop the PC.
. The screen is not initially locked, but after I select my user & try to enter my password, It either locks up as above or it locks up & keeps looping through saying the user/PW combination is not valid (sometimes filling the PW line with dots).

Once, it worked perfectly!?

So, from then on, I booted using the fail-safe mode.

The install went reasonably well. I did not take the option to include updates at the same time.

I did accept to allow the upgrade tool to delete all suggested files (I don't know what most of them were for, but I was happy to get rid of a lot of old kernels, etc.). This deletion may have been the reason for my subsequent problems.

I thought that the missing updates would help, so allowed those to be installed, but the problems persisted.

From reading other posts, I gained the impression that this login problem may be caused by the graphics driver.

I am not a skilled Linux user, even though I have been using Ubuntu for 4 years. Some of the following comments may suggest that I know what I am doing, but I don't, & have been spending many hours searching for a solution over the past week.

I now know that I have a 5-year-old ATI graphics card. However, at one stage during the boot, it said to configure an NVidia graphics driver. This didn't help.

Hardware Driver didn't help, as it merely comments "No proprietary drivers are in use on this system".

I tried to work out what was wrong with the graphics driver, & soon realised that it was set up for the wrong card type.

After lots of searching files, I thought fglrx might be the solution, & downloaded that (even though ATI said that the legacy cards support stopped over 1 year ago). It didn't help.

I then noticed that there was no /etc/x11/xorg.conf, only backups & failsafe.

So I copied failsafe to xorg.conf, & changed the driver to "radeon". This didn't help.

I did try the "reconfigure graphics" option that comes up when using the fail-safe mode.

I changed the driver to “fbdev”, but this didn't help the login problem, so I changed it back to "radeon". I still have HD graphics (from using the failsafe boot), so I think that I will stay with "radeon", as it seems to be the right driver.

[The other problem that I had had is that there was no network connection for 2 days. I use a cable connection, but instead of the "wired" icon on the top right corner, I had the "wireless" icon!? from checking on my Mythbuntu (9.10) PC, I determined that there was nothing wrong with my router or modem or ISP...]

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: gdm 2.30.0-0ubuntu5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-22.33-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-22-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat May 15 08:41:25 2010
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_AU.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gdm

[Garry Leach (garry-leach)]

I forgot to mention above:

1. After signing-on, the following message appears:
"Message: There is a problem with the configuration server.
(/usr/lib/libconf2-4/gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256)".

2. From the fail-safe options, I can get a good login screen from either selection:
. Run in low graphics mode for this session only, or
. Restart X.

Regards, Garry.

[Garry Leach (garry-leach)]

Some new things I tried:

1. I now shut-down using "hibernate".

 When I next switch on the PC, it boots up quickly to the log-in screen, which behaves with no problems.

I don't know whether this is a good long-term solution for me...

2. I did a complete fresh install on a separate hard drive.

I first tried the install on the PC that is having problems. The live CD could not boot. So, I installed the system on another PC.

I then put this fresh HDD in the problem PC (while the PC's normal HDD was disconnected). It had exactly the same problem during boot - it froze up at the sign-on screen.

Regards, Garry.

[Garry Leach (garry-leach)]

I tried another idea:

I thought that, since the lock-up occurs during the sign-on process, I could bypass that stage by changing "login" to log me in automatically.

A little while after completing the boot menu, The message, as in comment #2 above, appeared (There is a problem with the configuration server. (/usr/lib/libconf2-4/gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256).

I don't know whether the keyboard was locked at that stage, as when I pressed "enter" nothing seemed to happen for a while (I think that the OK button may have indicated a click; the message stayed on the screen for a fair while). But eventually it disappeared, & the desktop was displayed.

However, the mouse & keyboard were locked, so I could not use the PC.

Regards, Garry.

[Garry Leach (garry-leach)]

I am also a subscriber to bug #554172, CUPS & other services not starting up at boot.

It has been suggested to me that my lack of keyboard & mouse may be due to these not being"started" in the normal way, particularly as they are started when I use the abnormal way to boot (as described above in #2).

Any comments?

Regards, Garry.

[Garry Leach (garry-leach)]

0n 23/05/2010, my wife was checking e-mails when I left for work; she is not aware of my hibernate technique, so she shut-down using shutdown.

I wasn't too concerned about this, as I had been thinking that I should try a "proper" boot. So when I first booted the next morning, I used the normal kernel, just to see whether there would be any change. It actually booted as it should, without any lock-up (contrary to my posted bug). However, I then discovered that my network was not connected.

I tried rebooting my router & modem; this did not help.

I searched the internet for suggestion, but this also did not help.

So I decided to reboot the PC. This did not go smoothly.

Comments on the subsequent multiple boot attempts:

1. Using normal mode; this allowed me to enter my PW at the sign-on
screen, but the window then locked-up. I am not sure whether it was
this attempt or the next one where I still had a mouse & KB, but could
not initiate any action with them. (This is more or less my reported bug).
2. I then did the subsequent boots using safe mode.
3. On another boot, it got some way into the boot, then the system initiated reboot
itself.
4. It may have been one of the safe mode boots where the mouse & KB were
available, but the PC was not taking action of the clicks. In this
case, there were icons across the bottom of the screen (I don't think
that this happens in normal mode, only safe mode), including a
shut-down/restart icon. When I clicked on shut-down, it listed its 3
options (shutdown, restart, hibernate). However, when I clicked on
restart nothing happened. When I clicked ctl-alt-del or back-space,
nothing happened. I didn't try ctl-alt-F1, because I don't know what to
do on a terminal at that stage of booting.
5. The final attempt (using safe mode, selecting "run in safe mode", then selecting "start X") worked OK, with all functions (except CUPS (see bug #554172)), including the network.

I have been wondering whether my boot problems may be an "upstart" problem. Bug #554172 is pondering various start problems; I am not sure that anyone has put this "lock-up" issue into consideration there.

Regards, Garry.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, it seems that the bugtriagers didn't have time to investigate your issue yet but since you are the only one in this case setting the bug as low

[gene (eugenios)]

I observe a similar behavior on 2.6.36.1 and 2.6.37-rc3. The gdm login window locks up for 20 seconds and then gets released. With kdm the lockup seems to be either longer or permanent. It does look like kms+gdm problem. Mine is intel's i915.

[Christina (cyang)]

I have the same problem in ubuntu 10.04.1

When I lock my screen and leave it alone for more than 5 minutes (or so), the keyboard and mouse do not work when I come back.

Force restart re-enables the devices after startup, but I can't find another way to unlock the screen, when it acts up.

[dino99 (9d9)]

This version has expired