ok done all this, cant get back into the program, I have uninstalled, reinstalled, and done updates, and back to the same issue. I now get to what looks like a dos screen, and I can login, but cant get into the normal Zorin screen. I can run commands in this screen, any ideas?
Hi, ribivi and carmar,
I have the same problem and it happened at around the same time, after yesterday’s updates. So I’m wondering if it’s caused by the updates. (Dual booting Windows 7 and Zorin 15 Lite 32-bit.)
I followed the steps in carmar’s first linked post. In the Grub text editor, there is no line for “ro quiet splash.” As in ribivi’s menu, there is instead:
ro initrd=/casper/initrd.lz4 quiet splash
Entering “nomodeset” does not make a difference, except that the Zorin logo does not appear while booting.
At the blank screen, ctrl+alt+F1 does summon a text-based login. From there, I ran the commands recommended by the linked post (sudo apt-get update, etc). The system checks for updates and drivers, but returns nothing, and when I reboot, it’s the same blank screen.
Then I tried the top three solutions recommended by carmar’s second linked post. Nothing.
Before yesterday’s updates, booting was no problem.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
@ribivi & @cnimi
I assume that sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall also doesn’t fix the issue?
@ribivi - are you running Lite or Core? 32bit or 64 bit?
PS - please also try sudo apt dist-upgrade
Hi, carmar,
Thanks for your response. Yes, I’ve tried both of those commands. No luck.
I’m not sure of the etiquette on forum boards, but since ribivi started this thread, I’ll keep quiet and listen for possible solutions. I just wanted to register that there’s more than one user with this problem. Thanks.
Thanks. It is fine to chime-in if you have the same problem - only need to start a new thread if there is a different problem or a variation to the same problem. Yours is the same issue.
I’d like to see if @jgordon or @AZorin can weigh-in because at this point I don’t know what the issue could be.
Thanks, carmar.
OK, I have made a little progress, but not much. Continued reading other solutions buried in your last linked post. After getting to the shell, tried:
sudo apt-get install --reinstall lightdm
Nothing. There is a suggestion to purge lightdm, but it looked as though it might take Zorin down with it. Also a suggestion to reinstall xserver-org, but don’t know what that is.
My understanding is that lightdm is the manager by which the user logs into the desktop. Is that correct? There’s an additional suggestion to try installing a different manager, gdm. Would that be worth a shot?
Finally, from the shell, I tried:
startx
That gets me into the desktop. But I can’t figure how to get there directly by booting into it. Any thoughts?
Can you try sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target ?
PS - If that doesn’t work, try sudo systemctl enable graphical.target --force and then the first line.
Thanks, carmar.
I tried it in terminal. Here’s the response:
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/default.target → /lib/systemd/system/graphical.target
I’ll try rebooting now. By the way, I had a look inside .xsession-errors, and it’s filled with WARNINGs and CRITICALs. Would any of that information be diagnostically useful?
Tried rebooting. No luck. After the Zorin logo, the screen still goes blank. I can get into the shell with ctrl+alt+f3, and then log in, and then start the desktop with startx.
Is there any way to undo yesterday’s updates?
To be honest, this is pretty discouraging… Yesterday the operating system was working normally, and today it’s suddenly dysfunctional.
Can you check if there are any broken packages in Synaptic? If there are, use the selection under Edit to fix them.
As for reversing updates, the only thing I can think of is removing the kernel and falling back to an older one. To first check on that, when you boot, check in grub that under Advanced options you have an older kernel that you can boot into. Boot into the most recent older kernel (call it, N-1) and see if your machine works fine. If it does then remove the most recent kernel (call it, N) using Synaptic. Do a search for “linux-image” and then “linux-header”. On my machine, I have 5.4.0-54 as the current version and 5.4.0-53 as the older version. So, if I wanted to remove the current kernel and boot into the older one, I would completely remove 5.4.0-54 for both linux-image and linux-header.
Hi, carmar,
Thanks for your help. I checked for broken packages in Synaptic, but found none.
Also checked under advanced options in grub. My kernels are the same as yours. Tried booting from both. No luck.
I guess I’m wondering whether there’s any way to isolate whatever updates happened with me and @ribvivi yesterday. I checked history in Synaptic, but there’s nothing for yesterday.
Do you think it’s a problem with lightdm? Should I try installing a different login manager?
Or is it worth looking at any of the information in .xsession-errors? There are countless lines like this: (xfce4-session:5002): xfce4-session-WARNING …
Or like this: (xiccd:5193): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL …
Or like this: (wrapper-2.0:2352): Gtk-CRITICAL …
But that information doesn’t mean anything to me. If you or the others you mentioned (@jgordon or @AZorin) have any further insights, I’d appreciate it.
I recommend trying to reinstall your display manager (again, I recommend Synaptic). Since I have Core, I have gdm3 as opposed to your lightdm - if lightdm still gives you problems you can try gdm3 or some other.
You could post the error details that you saw earlier - may help if your display manager reinstallation doesn’t fix the problem.
Thanks, carmar. I did try to reinstall lightdm, a few posts ago, through the command line. Then a second time through Synaptic. No luck. But I’ll try a different display manager, as you suggest.
Installed lxdm. More or less the same problem. After the Zorin logo, it cuts straight to a command-line login prompt: username, password. Then startx, and the desktop appears. I still don’t understand why the boot process is breaking down mid-way.
Here are a few of the numerous error messages from .xsession-errors:
(Thunar:5150): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.286: gtk_main_quit: assertion ‘main_loops != NULL’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.454: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.454: g_object_unref: assertion ‘G_IS_OBJECT (object)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.454: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.454: g_object_unref: assertion ‘G_IS_OBJECT (object)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.455: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.455: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.455: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.455: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.455: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.456: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.456: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.456: g_object_unref: assertion ‘G_IS_OBJECT (object)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.456: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.456: g_object_unref: assertion ‘G_IS_OBJECT (object)’ failed
(wrapper-2.0:5155): Gtk-CRITICAL **: 23:03:18.641: gtk_widget_destroy: assertion ‘GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)’ failed
Gdk-Message: 23:03:19.104: xfdesktop: Fatal IO error 4 (Interrupted system call) on X server :0.
Something I found that may be useful: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1132932/cannot-login-anymore-to-xfce
Thanks, carmar. I tried doing the two things mentioned by Lagane (the author of the post), but no luck.
I was able to check the log of what updates were installed yesterday:
Commandline: aptdaemon role=‘role-commit-packages’ sender=’:1.67’
Upgrade: libsystemd0:i386 (237-3ubuntu10.42, 237-3ubuntu10.43), libpulsedsp:i386 (1:11.1-1ubuntu7.10, 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.11), pulseaudio:i386 (1:11.1-1ubuntu7.10, 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.11), udev:i386 (237-3ubuntu10.42, 237-3ubuntu10.43), libudev1:i386 (237-3ubuntu10.42, 237-3ubuntu10.43), libpulse0:i386 (1:11.1-1ubuntu7.10, 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.11), libnss-myhostname:i386 (237-3ubuntu10.42, 237-3ubuntu10.43), libpulse-mainloop-glib0:i386 (1:11.1-1ubuntu7.10, 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.11), systemd-sysv:i386 (237-3ubuntu10.42, 237-3ubuntu10.43), libpam-systemd:i386 (237-3ubuntu10.42, 237-3ubuntu10.43), systemd:i386 (237-3ubuntu10.42, 237-3ubuntu10.43), libnss-systemd:i386 (237-3ubuntu10.42, 237-3ubuntu10.43), pulseaudio-module-bluetooth:i386 (1:11.1-1ubuntu7.10, 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.11), pulseaudio-utils:i386 (1:11.1-1ubuntu7.10, 1:11.1-1ubuntu7.11)
A lot of pulse audio updates, so those can be eliminated but I can’t make a determination on the rest of them.
Thanks, carmar.
When you say that the pulse audio updates can be eliminated, do you mean that I may uninstall them, or that they’re unlikely to be relevant to the problem?
Should I try uninstalling these updates, or is there a risk that I could make things worse? I’ve noticed that the desktop is also behaving oddly: applications disappear from the panel, for example.
Sorry. I meant you can ignore the pulse audio updates. I don’t see how they could have caused any problem.
I don’t know enough about the rest to opine. Perhaps send a PM to AZorin?