I have a HP MT 44 Laptop with Ubuntu 20.04 and it does not boot up all the way. It starts normally, and there are some errors on screen and then everything is black and stays black. I attached the output before it turns black. Before the issue than My wife (it is her laptop) had to enter her password before she had to turn off the laptop (maybe a different issue). The laptop worked fine before the issue off the black screen.
Once it goes black, are you able to access the linux virtual consoles.
e.g. ctrl+alt+f3
(get back to graphical with ctrl+alt+f1)
Can you connect an external monitor, does it show black (and/or virtual console text login) or is a login provided on any display.
(the thought is perhaps gdm3 itself is somehow not starting or displaying correctly, if you can login at a text console there’s more options)
You can test an ubuntu liveboot just to check out the hardware.
crl+alt+f3 does not work.
However by pressing esc I was able to get into grub menu and could load the recovery mode and then the laptop started normally.
In recovery mode I tried to check if the system was ok that failed probably because the drive was not mounted. Also I wanted to update broken packages that also failed.
Then a normal start which worked and I could enter the os Normally.
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Hm. By any chance, is there some drive encryption (password protected) in place?
Nvm. Just realized the laptop was rebooted in the middle of updates getting installed
Yeah no enqription.
You pointed to that it might have been that the update procedure was interrupted.
I updated the system first and then I did an upgrade from 20.04 to 22.04 that did also not work.
So normal boot still black screen, dit it starts normal in recovery mode.
Im following what you said here
Unless this is something specific and was done every time… what else asks for the User password? Unless this is some malware, system update comes to mind. She entered the pass, update started, then it was cut off in the middle by a reboot.
I assume you tried running from a live usb stick with Ubuntu, right?
No via the grub menu. Then choose advanced option for Ubuntu, and then you can choose the different kernels and the recovery mode.
There are two kernel options and i just thought let’s try the older. And that one starts normal.
So how I see it I have two options one fix the newer kernel or make the older default.
Or is there a different option.
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Yep, that is something I did myself long ago. Although it wasnt an update, but I bricked Ubuntu by an utility. Same thing with the old kernel working.
You are right on the options. If it manages to boot properly on the old one thats good. Havent done this in ages, but you would need to manually set an older/newer kernel to work. Try googling tutorials on kernel update.
But if the older works… but with glitches, I would do a reinstall, backing up all the needed data. Not sure if trying to fix it would be less time consuming. But Im coming from a point, where during a specific command even the clock on the taskbar became squares… Reboot revealed a much worse picture, with even network drivers and services ripped out of the system. Spent 5 hours before giving up.
When booted with the previous kernel selected, did the updates at 20.04 complete fully, and what did the 22.04 upgrade attempt say, when it failed (is there enough disk space, for example, including in /boot ).
Does a 22.04 (or 24.04) live USB boot start correctly.
I’d make sure there is a safe backup of /home data. There’s more that can be done but steps on limited information could leave you further back.
What version is the BIOS?
I very recently went through a similar issue with my wife’s Dell/AMD laptop. Anything newer than kernel 6.8 was completely unstable. A BIOS update resolved the issue.
I could force grub to use the older kernel en update-grub and now the laptop starts fine.
If the problem starts again I have a spare ssd.
It seems that the upgrade to 22.04 went fine there were some warnings about 3party software not supported.
The rest of the install went great.