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I'm back. I recently let apt apply some updates and tried restarting. This time I have symptoms similar to this recent question, but I don't have an Intel processor.

  • GRUB menu shows me options for kernels 5.4.0-52, -53, and -54.
  • Choosing any of them does the same thing: normal behavior up to the point of asking me for the password to decrypt my hard drive, then unresponsive black screen after entering it. Only response I get after that point is when I press Ctrl-Alt-Del, which brings up a splash screen with a 5-dot "spinner" while it shuts down, or Ctrl-Alt-F3 drops me into a terminal login.
  • That means choosing the oldest kernel does not give me a working system.
  • I can boot into recovery mode for any kernel just fine.
  • dpkg -l | grep linux-image shows ii status for all images. In fact, dpkg -l shows ii or rc for all packages.
  • dpkg --configure -a does nothing.
  • update-grub finishes successfully but fixes nothing.
  • apt upgrade and apt dist-upgrade do nothing except print a list of packages "automatically installed and no longer required", which includes exactly the oldest kernel and an Nvidia driver:
    • libnvidia-compute-435
    • linux-headers-5.4.0-52
    • linux-headers-5.4.0-52-generic
    • linux-image-5.4.0-52-generic
    • linux-modules-5.4.0-52-generic
    • linux-modules-extra-5.4.0-52-generic

This worries me. In the past I've been able to safely boot into the oldest kernel while I figure out what's wrong with the installation of the newest kernel. If my machine thinks my oldest kernel can be removed, maybe something in it was corrupted?

If I "resume normal boot" from recovery mode, it drops me into a terminal login prompt.

How can I figure out what's going wrong behind the black screen? I don't have any error message to look up.

John Freeman
  • 101

1 Answers1

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Reinstalling the desktop fixed my problem:

apt install --reinstall ubuntu-gnome-desktop

Here's a bunch of commands I tried before that one that didn't fix the problem on their own, but may have set it up to succeed:

apt update
apt upgrade
apt dist-upgrade
apt install --reinstall linux-image-5.4.0-52-generic
apt install --reinstall libnvidia-compute-435

After I could log in, I noticed my internet wasn't working. Turns out Network Manager stopped managing the connections. The last step of this answer fixed that problem, by clearing the contents of the file /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf.

John Freeman
  • 101