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My install of Ubuntu 20.10 is in a boot loop and I can’t fix it at all. Ctrl+Alt+F2 and F4 work, but they just bring me to a blank screen with no text. I can’t even type.

I have a Timeshift backup of my system, but not being able to even get into the console makes it impossible to go back. This is probably because I was editing lightdm.conf before as well.

Ctrl+Alt+F7 gives me the usual dev/sda2 text, but nothing brings me to the console where I could fix it.

If anyone can help that would be nice.

BeastOfCaerbannog
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Garv Banerji
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1 Answers1

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  • First enter into the GRUB boot menu. Some say hold down Shift while booting, but I can't seem to succeed with that. It might be something that used to work.

    What I do and almost always succeed with is hitting Esc one time only, just as the BIOS displays its text.

  • To get a root prompt, with the machine in a "sane" state, i.e. being able to run apt-get or apt, and most other commands, after getting to the GRUB menu, select an option that says Advanced options for Ubuntu and then select the latest kernel's recovery mode.

    In the recovery mode menu select these options:

    1. fsck - to have your file systems checked and mounted in writable mode.
    2. Enable networking, to be able to run apt-get.
    3. Drop to root prompt. Note that you need an extra Enter.
    4. Undo the edits in lightdm.conf that broke your system.
    5. After you're done, type reboot or shutdown --poweroff now.
BeastOfCaerbannog
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Hannu
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  • "and almost always succeed with [...] ESC": alternatively, one could set the grub menu to get exposed on every boot, along with a timeout of a few seconds, to let it pick the default entry on its own: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1174374/grub-issues-message-at-boot-error-cant-find-command-hwmatch/1301092#1301092 – Levente Dec 29 '20 at 14:34