Why does switching to the tty give me a blank screen?

Question

After booting to the GUI in 12.04, I attempt to move to the virtual terminal (or shell, or tty) via Ctrl-Alt-F1 (F1 through F6), and the screen remains blank. I have tried all 6 tty instances and the results are the same. Ctrl-alt-F7 brings me back to the GUI without a problem. Any thoughts?

This occurs often together with being unable to see Grub of the boot splash. Can you see those? — nanofarad, Jul 11 '12 at 20:11

score 65 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 11 '12 at 22:56

65

This is usually caused because the graphical text-mode resolution set at boot up is not compatible with your video card. The solution is to switch to true text-mode by configuring Grub appropriately:

Open the terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T

Paste the below, and enter your password when asked:

sudo sed -i -e 's/#GRUB_TERMINAL/GRUB_TERMINAL/g' /etc/default/grub

Then type sudo update-grub
Reboot and the virtual terminals should now work.

answered Jul 11 '12 at 22:56

ish

139,926

That did it, thanks! It made the text a bit bigger than I would like once it reset to default. I opened the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file to edit the text size and the first line states "do not edit". Suppose that's a question for another day though. Thanks for the help – SeanO Jul 12 '12 at 16:37
Also works for me in 14.04.... great tip. – belacqua Apr 25 '14 at 16:18
Indeed, have some karma. – Noki Jul 04 '14 at 14:16
1

Unfortunately, this didn't help with my graphic-driver issues (I need the X server down to install proper drivers, but the lack of drivers prevents me from getting a working command-line with ctrl-alt-F1). – Jonathan Y. Feb 01 '15 at 20:34
This thing left my grub to black & white. – knh190 Apr 16 '15 at 14:24
8

CAREFUL, this thing has completely messed up my grub, I don't see a boot menu anymore. (Ubuntu 15.04) – Arty Oct 25 '15 at 03:21
@izx so this command opens /etc/default/grub and changes the line #GRUB_TERMINAL to #GRUB_TERMINAL/g right? I'm asking this just to know how to undo if anything goes wrong – 842Mono Jan 05 '16 at 23:23
1

@MinaMichael No. It changes #GRUB_TERMINAL to GRUB_TERMINAL. The slash ends the regular expression, and the g is the global-modifier that sais: replace ALL matches. – Philipp Zedler Jan 12 '16 at 11:23
1

Doesn't work on 14.0.4 for me – Zach Rattner May 17 '16 at 01:57
1

+1. This also solves a somewhat different problem: After the 16.04 upgrade I was actually able to see the virtual terminals hostname login: prompts but there was no input (keyboard echo) in them so I couldn't login. Uncommenting the GRUB_TERMINAL=console line followed by sudo update-grub solved this. – arielf May 29 '16 at 20:35
Did not work for me in 14.014, and now when I reboot, I get 'error: no video mode activated.' Can someone please tell me how to undo whatever I just did? – neuronet Jun 01 '16 at 21:24
@neuronet, Mount the drive on another machine, chroot to the rootfs, and regenerate/update your grub config. – sherrellbc Dec 20 '16 at 18:40
1

Hey @izx, I followed your steps. But the problem hasn't been solved yet. I got a black and white grub. But the terminals are black. actually, whenever the swap fills up, be it even a byte. My terminals go black. I am able to type on them. I just did chvt 2 and logged in to that blcak terminal and executed sudo reboot and it worked. The problem is with the display only. My problem http://askubuntu.com/questions/876982/virtual-consoles-tty1-tty6-not-working-on-ubuntu-16-04 – thewebjackal Jan 28 '17 at 17:04
3

Grub file states # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only) #GRUB_TERMINAL=console Why would disabling graphical terminal fix this issue? For Ubuntu 16.04 – Sun Bear Mar 10 '17 at 17:56
This worked for me (kubuntu 16.04), but @MinaMichael s answer of setting GRUB_GFXMODE=auto worked better because it didn't change my grub menus. – Joe Jun 19 '18 at 23:08

score 15 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 22 '17 at 19:53

15

What fixed this for me was adding nomodeset to the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line in the /etc/default/grub file. Here's how:

Type in terminal: gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

Search for this line: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT

So for example if you have:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash usbcore.autosuspend=-1"

change it to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash usbcore.autosuspend=-1 nomodeset"

After you finish, update grub (sudo update-grub) and reboot (sudo reboot) for the changes to take effect.

Optional: You could add nomodeset vga=xxx (not just nomodeset), the xxx is a VESA screen code that best matches your screen resolution. Take a look at this.

edited Aug 22 '17 at 19:53

wjandrea

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answered Jan 18 '16 at 20:15

842Mono

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2

Worked for me. Be sure to read the last paragraph above, about running sudo update-grub to apply the changes. – Andy Thomas Mar 18 '16 at 20:44
1

Worked for me on 14.0.4 – Zach Rattner May 17 '16 at 01:58
1

When I do this with 14.04 and some Hardware enabling stack whatever this works technically, but graphical desktop is not booted into nor does startx work. But the terminal is back. – hakre Sep 16 '16 at 16:10
1

For me On Ubuntu 16.04 this caused my HDMI-VGA monitor to completely stop working. – Padraic Cunningham Dec 22 '16 at 17:21
@PadraicCunningham you can undo it from tty. I hope it wasn't too much trouble – 842Mono Dec 22 '16 at 20:49
How does this interact with having GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX set to something? – einpoklum Jan 02 '17 at 21:27
I didn't know but I found this. suchen bevor Sie fragen @einpoklum – 842Mono Jan 02 '17 at 22:04

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Oct 02 '17 at 18:30

7

This is for newer version of Ubuntu:

Edit the GRUB configuration file:
```
sudo nano /etc/default/grub
```
Locate the line
```
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480
```
change it to
```
GRUB_GFXMODE=auto
```
and save the file.
Then update grub
```
sudo update-grub
```

edited Oct 02 '17 at 18:30

wjandrea

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answered Sep 10 '17 at 18:01

Michael

81

On Ubuntu 14.04.5 I installed a program that caused a 4.x kernel to be installed. Previously I had a 3.x kernel. This answer is what fixed this issue of blank ttys for me on an Asus Zenbook UX303LN. – frederickjh Apr 17 '18 at 12:30

score 1 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 22 '17 at 03:50

Please take a look at my question at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/643882, with regards to virtual terminal not functioning on Ubuntu 16.04 on Lenovo Thinkpad T400.

The solution i presented is geared towards user with Hybrid Graphics Card, in particular, AMD/ATI graphics card and Intel integrated graphics card. For me, disabling the intel graphics card and enabling the opensource ATI/AMD radeon module helps in my case.

If you are using a old Radeon graphics card like mine (Radeon HD 3450/3470), now you can switch between virtual terminal and graphical desktop with ease to troubleshoot potential issues.

If adding blacklist intel_graphics_card in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and running

sudo depmod -a

still doesn't work due to linux kernel or other dependencies, you are advised to add modprobe.blacklist=<module_name> to /etc/default/grub like the following example:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash crashkernel=384M-:128M radeon.dpm=1  modprobe.blacklist=i915"

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Apr 09 '19 at 15:29

Here is what worked for me on Ubuntu 18.04 with 2560x1440 screen:

open grub configuration file in editor: sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
uncomment GFXMODE and set your exact resolution -> change#GRUB_GFXMODE toGRUB_GFXMODE=2560x1440
add line GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
Add remove splash and add nosplash noplymouth nomodeset to your GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. After cahnges mine looks like GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet nosplash noplymouth intel_idle.max_cstate=1 nomodeset"
save the file
update grub sudo update-grub
reboot
use Ctlr+Alt+F2 to switch immediately after boot

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Jul 18 '16 at 07:10

0

You need to shut down the graphics driver after you Ctrl+Alt+F1 before you try to install the Nvidia driver

As in sudo /etc/init.d/lightdm stop

edited Jul 18 '16 at 07:10

Kevin Bowen

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answered Feb 26 '15 at 00:25

Pat Hertel

39

3

"before you try to install the Nvidia driver" - I'm not sure what you mean by that. The question doesn't mention anything about Nvidia drivers. – wjandrea Oct 02 '17 at 18:20

Why does switching to the tty give me a blank screen?

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