Cannot login to tty1 after system starts

[Richard Griswold]

Binary package hint: upstart

1) The release of Ubuntu you are using, via 'lsb_release -rd' or System -> About Ubuntu.

~> lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
Release: 10.04

2) The version of the package you are using, via 'apt-cache policy packagename' or by checking in Synaptic.

upstart:
  Installed: 0.6.5-7
  Candidate: 0.6.5-7
  Version table:
 *** 0.6.5-7 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.6.5-6 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages

3) What you expected to happen

After system starts, I expect to have the following consoles available:

CTRL-ALT-F1: tty1 text login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F2: tty2 text login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F3: tty3 text login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F4: tty4 text login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F5: tty5 text login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F6: tty6 text login prompt
CTRL-ALT-F7: boot messages
CTRL-ALT-F8: graphical login manager

4) What happened instead

Consoles 2 through 8 work correctly, but instead of getting a log on prompt for tty1, I get a blank screen with a blinking cursor about halfway down on the left side. The ps command does not show any getty process for tty1:

~> ps -ef | grep tty
root 850 1 0 14:09 tty4 00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty4
root 855 1 0 14:09 tty5 00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty5
root 861 1 0 14:09 tty2 00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty2
root 862 1 0 14:09 tty3 00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty3
root 864 1 0 14:09 tty6 00:00:00 /sbin/getty -8 38400 tty6
root 1614 1599 2 14:10 tty8 00:01:34 /usr/bin/X11/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/slim.auth

If I run "sudo start tty1", I get "tty1 start/running, process nnnn" and the ps command shows a getty process for tty1. When I switch to the console, I get a login prompt, but it does not behave property. I sometimes have to press a key twice before the character appears, and I cannot log in successfully. The other consoles work correctly.

5) Other notes

I'm using SLiM for my login manager, and I've disabled the graphic splash screen by setting the GRUB command line in /etc/default/grub as follows:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="i915.modeset=1"

"i915.modeset=1" is there as a workaround for bug #566379.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: upstart 0.6.5-7
Uname: Linux 2.6.34-020634-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: vboxnetadp vboxnetflt vboxdrv
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Sep 5 14:34:40 2010
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
SourcePackage: upstart

[Bjoern Voigt (bjoern)]

On my system getty is not started automatically at all anymore. I have to start text consoles manually with:

sudo start tty1

Probably the initial start during boot fails. How can I debug this problem? I use the graphical splash screen, Grub 1 and Kubuntu 11.04.

[James Hunt (jamesodhunt)]

This sounds like a bug with slim - try logging in on tty2 and looking at what file descriptors it has open:

ls -al /proc/$(pgrep slim)/fd/

If it has /dev/tty1 open, that's the problem. A better search would be to run the following as root which will tell you the pid of the process that has /dev/tty1 open

(cd /proc;for pid in [0-9][0-9]*; do ls -al /proc/$pid/fd|grep /dev/tty1; if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then echo "pid $pid has /dev/tty1 open"; fi; done)