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Using 18.04LTS, and last month when it updated and needed to reboot to 'finish', it locked-up upon reboot and has been doing this ever since - I go to boot up, it gets to the blank screen where the mouse pointer shows up, and then the pointer freezes, the light for HD access goes out, and nothing is responsive - dead.... So, hold down the power button, reboot, and it goes to the purple page with the count down and list, defaults, and boots up fine... thankfully there's my VISTA64 laptop that works without all this linux grief, that I now have to depend on for daily work - and which btw works flawlessly (but no 'updates' to it to mess it up - too old for microslop) ~ sure wish linux did as well. Think I'll have to wipe drive and restore backup image to fix unless someone knows what is bugging this thing... maybe then just cut off updates all together as they just seem to cause problems so who needs them ~ so much for LTS?

FYI - The thing did a couple of updates since this issue popped-up, but none required to be rebooted to 'finish' nor did they fix the boot/reboot bug...

LATER - latest Ubuntu update just required reboot to 'finish' again... rebooted and hung-up frozen - hit power button, reboots fine using 'list' w/ timer of purple page. SEEMS TO BE HANGING EVERY OTHER BOOTUP

WORKAROUND: (FOR MY TOUGHBOOK)...When booting up hit 'esc' when the 'PANASONIC' splash-screen comes up to go see the BIOS terminal output - Next, when the menu to select CD/HD/USB comes up to boot off of, arrow down to 'HD' and hit 'enter' - finally, if the purple screen comes up w/o the Ubuntu menu, hit 'esc' to get it to come up, then hit 'enter' selecting the default, now hold down power button to reboot. THE NEXT time around it will not go to the blank purple screen, but rather to the purple screen with the Ubuntu menu ~ hit 'enter' when it does and it will FINALLY fully boot (ie not hang) :-\

The MAJOR
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  • Have you tried boot-repair?: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1104855/how-to-make-grub-menu-appear-instead-grub-minimal-bash-like-in-booting/1105737#1105737 – WinEunuuchs2Unix Jun 30 '19 at 19:59
  • when it does the 2nd boot, it is fine - just the 'hick-up' there on the 1st boot... not sure if boot repair or repair grub should be done by a newbie like me not knowing much about either - if running either ran into 'trouble' I'd probably make things worse... so far the workaround is simplest, and just hope one of the next 'ubuntu updates' fixed what an earlier one broke. Then there's always running G4L and the USB image :-{ – The MAJOR Jul 01 '19 at 01:12
  • boot-repair doesn't change anything unless you want it to. The most important thing for the rest of us is it generates a report of everything that is wrong on your system (if anything). Then you post the link to the saved report on the internet here and all the experts can have a look to help out. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Jul 01 '19 at 02:01
  • That's just it - I wouldn't know if the changes should be done or not done - can they be 'undone'? Then this report - wouldn't know where to find it, and once found, how to put it on the internet (the link I can handle..but got nowhere to upload the report to.). – The MAJOR Jul 01 '19 at 10:25
  • looked for 'boot repair' in the Ubuntu software and could not find it - search engine came up with how to install, which went WAY over my head... then the info on it was scary too :-0 – The MAJOR Jul 01 '19 at 12:00
  • You don't have to look anything up click on the link I gave in the first comment. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Jul 01 '19 at 14:27
  • your link is what I'd already found and it went way over my head... then the info on it was scary too... issue is not that it doesn't boot, but rather got this hangup upon initial boot that once re-booted boots fine :-) – The MAJOR Jul 02 '19 at 04:51

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WORKAROUND: (FOR MY TOUGHBOOK)...When booting up hit 'esc' when the 'PANASONIC' splash-screen comes up to go see the BIOS terminal output - Next, when the menu to select CD/HD/USB comes up to boot off of, arrow down to 'HD' and hit 'enter' - finally, if the purple screen comes up w/o the Ubuntu menu, hit 'esc' to get it to come up, then hit 'enter' selecting the default, now hold down power button to reboot. THE NEXT time around it will not go to the blank purple screen, but rather to the purple screen with the Ubuntu menu ~ hit 'enter' when it does and it will FINALLY fully boot (ie not hang) :-\

The MAJOR
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OK - so, today it updates and asks to reboot... told it I'll shut down later.

When I did, and then rebooted, the thing looked like it crashed - kept going on about fsck not being able to work... rebooted and back to terminal screen with the same error (eg extent tree ... level 2 ...narrower? usb malfunctions...), but this time I typed in "fsck sda1" and it ran thru asking to do a bunch of repairs... kept just sayin' 'yes' and let it finish back to terminal screen...

Rebooted (cold - hold down power button) and it came up without the hang... been booting without my work around and without hanging!!!

BACK TO "NORMAL" bootups :-) Boots up now without the circus act~

The MAJOR
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