3.2.0-43 boots to text console

[movieman]

So does anyone know why upgrading to the 3.2.0-43 kernel causes my laptop to boot to a text console instead of graphical mode (using the Nvidia driver)? 3.2.0-40 still works fine, but having to select it manually at each boot is a pain.

It doesn't seem to be the driver, as logging in and running startx brings up an X session.

[matt_symes]

Hi

Is it booting to the grub prompt, initramfs prompt or a console (VT) login ?

What do your logs say ?

How are you starting X ? Are you starting lightdm manually ?

Hardware details would be useful as well.

Kind regards

[movieman]

It's booting to a normal virtual console with a login prompt, and I can log in there and run 'startx' to start X. I've no idea how X is normally started, since it just boots up and there's some kind of login window on the screen (the default, I guess).

It's an i5 with Nvidia GT330M and Ubuntu 12.04. I normally log into XFCE.

As mentioned, if I choose the old kernel from grub, it boots fine. If I choose the new one it boots to the text console.

[matt_symes]

Hi


It's booting to a normal virtual console with a login prompt, and I can log in there and run 'startx' to start X. I've no idea how X is normally started, since it just boots up and there's some kind of login window on the screen (the default, I guess).

It's an i5 with Nvidia GT330M and Ubuntu 12.04. I normally log into XFCE.

As mentioned, if I choose the old kernel from grub, it boots fine. If I choose the new one it boots to the text console.

X is started by Lightdm in 12.04 and later. It looks like that is not starting for some reason.

Boot into the bad kernel, log into the VT and type


sudo service lightdm start

Does this start the login manager ?

If it does not start it may be worth looking at the logs to see why.

If it does start then we have to identify why it's not starting as part of the boot process.

Kind regards

[Zenuthink]

Matt_symes' diagnostic is most probably right : I also experienced the login console instead of the usual Xubuntu lightdm login screen after updating from 3.2.0-41 generic to 3.2.0-43 generic.

My configuration : Xubuntu Precise LTS 64 bits, i3 cpu, GT430 nvidia.

According to my experience, the cause may be a subtle one, with some internal fine tunings involved.

This is what I did, and the problem is gone for now (but why ?) :
1/ At first boot with the new kernel, I logged in from the console, then sudo reboot... and the next boot worked OK with the new kernel and the usual Xubuntu login screen !
2/ But the cause of the login problem was still there, the login console "sometimes" came up instead of the login screen as if on the edge of good and evil; otherwise I could work as usual with the new kernel
3/ I rebooted once to the older kernel 3.2.0-41 (from the Grub boot screen that I use for double booting other OS XP-32bits), just to check it was still possible; may be that fixed something (?)
4/ I also deleted useless usr.bin.firefox entries in /etc/apparmor.d (remnants of a previous installation of Firefox via Synaptic that I then removed - preferring a manually installed Firefox 32 bits in /opt)

I would hate adding confusion but I remember having experienced this unexpected login console in the past after kernel updating. When it happened, it was one time, self cured (?), so nobody complained.