ubuntu 8.10 black screen on login

cheese on toast2 · Post by **cheese on toast2** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 9:00 am

Hi all

i know the ubuntu forums is probably the best place for this. ive already posted there and nobody's replied and im desperate for an answer as the laptop in question contains all my important GCSE coursework...

i havent used my laptop for 2 days and ive just turned it on and im greeted with my desktop, which loads as normal, then after about 5 secods my screenlets load and the screen goes black, the panel at the top of the screen goes black/ milticoulored-lined as i mouse over it and my dock is invisible. the only thing that is visible are a few screenlets. i have no control over anything and the only way i can shutdown or reboot is to hit ctrl alt f1 and type 'sudo shutdown now' and even that doesnt work, the progress bar stops after about 2 seconds. Ive also tried different kernels and this doesnt help either, not even failsafe.

does anybody have any idea whats going on here?

all replies are very much appreciated!!

WytRaven · Post by **WytRaven** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 11:03 am

multi-coloured lines...that sounds like a video card driver issue...have you updated it lately? If you have or if you have been playing around with your xorg config you may well need to get into a terminal session (cant remember the keyboard shortcuts for that, it's been a while, but I know there is one) so that you can edit your xorg configuration files, even if you revert back to the standard generic vesa driver while you sort things out.

not much help i know but it might get you started...

joegiampaoli · Post by **joegiampaoli** » Sat Feb 21, 2009 3:02 pm

Could also be a broken GTK theme? Or engine?

cheese on toast2 · Post by **cheese on toast2** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 5:17 am

to get into a terminal i press ctrl+alt+f1. i havent actually got a driver for my intel graphics card because there isnt one supplied for it and its worked fine for several months like it. i havent ever touched my xorg configuration, i dont even know how to hehe

If a GTK theme or themer is broken, what can i do about it via terminal or otherwise?

thanks for the help so far!

joegiampaoli · Post by **joegiampaoli** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:47 am

Well about the GTK theme, I mean just in case you have installed a new look for your session in the last past days? If not then it's not that, it was just a guess. But it happens sometimes. Still your xorg should like rollback to the default safe version in case there are problems. The strange thing here is that it was working well for two days as you mentioned and not now. Did it update anything the last time you tried it before video became corrupted? Did you already try updating again via ctrl+alt+f1 and going sudo apt-get update then sudo apt upgrade, to see if there are any fixes released maybe.

Some things that come to mind and might be the problem:

1) Do you have desktop effects on in your account? (I guess you do because you have screenlets activated, but some people run screenlets without desktop effects, some work well without it)

2) Do you have other users in it maybe you can try logging to them? This to make sure maybe only problem with your session. If not google up how to create new users via term to try them out.

3)Google up how to disable desktop effects via terminal. (If you do have compiz activated I'm sure this might be the trouble).

Good Luck.

joegiampaoli · Post by **joegiampaoli** » Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:53 am

Oh, also try login in to your session, wait fo all of it to become garbled, still hit ctrl-F2 and type "metacity --replace" without quotes and even if you can't see anything, then hit enter, if that works disable desktop effecys immediately.

cheese on toast2 · Post by **cheese on toast2** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 3:27 am

ok, thanks! ill have a go

cheese on toast2 · Post by **cheese on toast2** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 4:03 am

ok, killing compiz worked. can i do anything to find out why compiz is suddenly not working after being fine for several months?

joegiampaoli · Post by **joegiampaoli** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 12:48 pm

Ok, I'm glad that worked out.

To tell you the truth I'm not sure why compiz would brake, maybe an update in the last past days could of broken it. I will advise you not to use compiz, I know desktop effects are cool and all, (I use them) but I think you really need a better video card to use them (mostly Nvidia) to support them properly. I even disable them sometimes especially when doing real-time audio recording of my music, they can crash my JACK server when I'm using just a bit too much of plugins and tracks. As I say, they are cool, but better go the safe way and just disable them permanently, and look into ubuntu forums to see who else has this same type of problem. Might find a fix or solution there.

cheese on toast2 · Post by **cheese on toast2** » Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:32 am

ok, thankyou very much for the help!

ubuntu 8.10 black screen on login

ubuntu 8.10 black screen on login

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