Black/purple screen after booting Ubuntu

[Rabensteiner Alexander]

Hi,

I am failing to boot into a freshly installed Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS on my ThinkPad-T460. When choosing the right bootloader in BIOS I get a dark screen, Ubuntu is not booting (also after 15mins of waiting ...).

I first thought my issue would be a *Black/purple screen after you boot Ubuntu for the first time* like over here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/162075/my-computer-boots-to-a-black-screen-what-options-do-i-have-to-fix-it

So I added ```ǹomodeset``` in the script executed before booting Ubuntu. Interestingly I was able to boot and then made this change persistent by updating the bootloader. I tried some more times to boot and suddenly it stopped working properly (with same blackscreen as before). I also took a look to the bootscript, ```ǹomodeset``` was present there.

Then I played around with some other obscure suggestions like adding ```nouveau.noaccel=1``` instead of ```nomodeset``` and replace ```qiuiet splash``` by ```noapic noacpi nosplash inqpoll```, but nothing gave me a soultion which did not get stuck with black screen of death after some reboots.

I am a little bit clueless at the moment, so I have appended the uncompressed logs in ```/var/log```, captured like in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingKernelBoot .
The files appended are from a boot that got stuck, I have killed my laptop after 10mins of nothing happening.

Btw. I have a dual boot with Windows 10, but I do not know if this is relevant for this issue.

Best
Alexander
---
ProblemType: Bug
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.20
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
DisplayManager: gdm3
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-11-16 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20200806.1)
Package: gnome-shell 3.28.4-0ubuntu18.04.3
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-53.59~18.04.1-generic 5.4.65
Tags: bionic
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-53-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip docker lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
_MarkForUpload: True

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1904474/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

The attached logs don't appear to be useful. They show both a successful boot and recovery mode boots.

Please:

1. Run the following command to automatically gather more info:

   apport-collect 1904474

2. Reproduce a failed boot again, wait for a minute or so, then reboot into recovery mode and run:

   journalctl -b-1 > prevboot.txt

   and attach the resulting text file here.

3. In future report bugs using the 'ubuntu-bug' command.

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

apport information

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

apport information

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

apport information

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

apport information

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

Hi,

I have followed your suggestion and recorded the output of `journalctl -b-1` to the files appended.

`prevboot1.text` is with

`GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nouveau.noaccel=1 quiet splash"`

and `prevboot2.txt` is with

`GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="nomodeset quiet splash"`

in `/etc/default/grub`, which both fail to boot (or is X not loaded properly?).

BTW I have found that my Ubuntu starts properly if I boot it with the entry in `Advanced Options` in BIOS and choose it there; only using the Ubuntu entry first displayed when BIOS pops up gets stucked in black/purple screen.

Best
Alexander

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

sorry appended file abve seems not to work.

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

Sorry, the BTW above was nonsense.

When trying to boot using `Advanced Options` in BIOS and choose Ubuntu there, the screen shows

`
Loading Linux5.4.0-53-generic ...
Loading initial ramdisk
`

and gets stuck there.

The strange comes now: if I open the bootscript for Ubuntu in BIOS removing one of the two spaces in the line `ro nomodeset quiet splash` or `ro nouveau.noaccel=1 quiet splash` (between ro and the other stuff) works fine, boots like a charm.

I am really curious what is going on here :-)

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks but the new attached logs also don't appear to be useful. They show both a successful boot and recovery mode boot. This makes me think they maybe don't relate to this bug...

To be sure, please try again: Reboot, reproduce a failed boot again, wait for a minute or so, then reboot into recovery mode and run:

 journalctl -b-1 > prevboot.txt

and attach the resulting text file here. Only one text file.

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

Ok,

I booted, waited some minutes where the screen gets stuck black/purple, powered off and booted to recovery mode to collect `journalctl -b-1`. You can find the file appended.

Maybe my system is booting correctly but the X Windows System is not able to load?

Best
Alexander

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks. That log does seem to show a problem. Maybe this is the issue:

Nov 19 13:47:24 alexander-ThinkPad-T460 gnome-session[1010]: gnome-session-binary[1010]: WARNING: Lost name on bus: org.gnome.SessionManager
Nov 19 13:47:24 alexander-ThinkPad-T460 gnome-session[1010]: gnome-session-binary[1010]: CRITICAL: We failed, but the fail whale is dead. Sorry....
Nov 19 13:47:24 alexander-ThinkPad-T460 gnome-session-binary[1010]: WARNING: Lost name on bus: org.gnome.SessionManager
Nov 19 13:47:24 alexander-ThinkPad-T460 systemd-logind[791]: System is powering down.
Nov 19 13:47:24 alexander-ThinkPad-T460 gnome-session-binary[1010]: CRITICAL: We failed, but the fail whale is dead. Sorry....

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Please run this command:

  lspci -kv > lspci.txt

and then attach the resulting text file here.

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

Thanks for the answer,

you can find the the requested file appended.

Best
Alexander

[Rabensteiner Alexander (pietracorvo)]

BTW now the screen also gets stuck as black-screen when I close my laptop lid, wait some seconds and open it again.

And the functions keys to regulate screen brightness are working no more (I also tried to change brightness with this tool http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2017/05/install-brightness-controller-utility-in-ubuntu-16-04-higher/ but it had no effect ...)

Could this be related to the above described issue?

Best
Alexander