GUI does not start

Question

Initially, the computer was showing the error as mentioned in How to fix "The system is running in low-graphics mode" error? question. Fixing it resulted in the above error.

Please take look at the last line

Started GNOME display manager... and deal with any system changes..p link was shut down.....

One more thing before all this problem I have edited xorg.conf file to use Tooya X graphic tablet as suggested on here.

I don't know if that's the reason but I thought it is important to share.

@Fabby I have tried this http://askubuntu.com/a/173238/283650 — Freddy, Jun 29 '15 at 03:32
Try pressing various combination of Ctrl+Alt+Fkey. Ubuntu gui is typically on F7, other F keys are virtual terminals. Also Alt+arrow left/right. I think 15.04 on my other laptop had similar issue — Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy, Jun 30 '15 at 03:21
@Serg Ctrl + Alt + F 1-6 opens virtual terminal while Cltrl + Alt + F7 returns back to black screen shown in question. — Freddy, Jun 30 '15 at 03:25
Ok can you start xserver manually ? Login to Ctrl+Alt+F1. Run either startx ( you may need to press alt + left / right ) or sudo service lightdm restart. The fact that you have virtual terminal access is good - means we can work on possible fixes — Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy, Jun 30 '15 at 03:47
@Serg Using sudo service lightdm restart shows following message Job for lightdm.service failed. See "systemct1 status lightdm.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details — Freddy, Jun 30 '15 at 03:59
The comment I wrote is too large so had to post on pastebin. http://paste.ubuntu.com/11797066/ it's impossible to get a lot done on mobile :( — Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy, Jun 30 '15 at 04:16
@Serg I think it will be easy if we use chat room http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/25340/room-for-freddy-and-serg — Freddy, Jun 30 '15 at 04:45
Since when does Ubuntu use systemd? Why does it suggest you do systemctl status lightdm.service unless you're running systemd? — nixpower, Jun 30 '15 at 22:53
@codingman as of 15.04 Ubuntu's switching to systemd. It came with his ubuntu version by default — Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy, Jul 01 '15 at 22:15
I had the same issue and before you reset the whole system please try reinstall the nvidia drivers and look in the xorg.conf file if the driver is commended out. I'm not sure if you need to do the first part, but it worked for me. — Phil, Jun 19 '18 at 21:07
In 20.04 I occasionally removed python3 through apt and got no GUI as a result. sudo apt update and sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop --reinstall --fix-missing fixed that. — kay27, Jan 27 '23 at 07:30

score 62 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 09 '18 at 12:08

62

Alt+F2 keystroke which started the terminal session for me and I was able to login.

sudo apt purge gdm gdm3
sudo apt install gdm3 ubuntu-desktop

Then choose your display manager in the menu that opens (for Ubuntu 16.10+ the default is GDM, for 16.04 and earlier the default is LightDM), or use sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3 to choose GDM.

systemctl restart gdm

This should work

edited Dec 09 '18 at 12:08

Alexey Zagalsky

110

answered Mar 11 '18 at 12:36

montu

721

6

systemctl restart gdm really helps me with ubuntu 18.04, thanks) – sluge Oct 15 '20 at 07:02
I panicked when only the Ubuntu login showed up during login. Your guide saved me! Thank you! – kohane15 Apr 02 '21 at 23:56
This resolved things for me after not being able to boot into the gdm gui after updating from 22.04 to 22.10, seeing "Gdm: GdmSession: no session desktop files installed, aborting..." . Thanks!
NOTE: I had to do this by normal boot, getting stuck in the console then ctrl+alt+f2 to get into tty2 to run the above. Even had to switch keyboards.
– Vivek Gani Oct 30 '22 at 03:04

score 9 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

9

There appears to be other people having this issue as well. A bug report was also made on this. It appears to be a bug with version 3.16. A temporary fix would be to use LightDM instead, so (in a VT, eg Ctrl+Alt+F1:

sudo apt-get install lightdm
sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

Press enter to get past the "Configuring lightdm" screen, and then navigate to LightDM in the list of options and press Enter. Restart, and you should be using LightDM. This should work temporarily until the GDM bug is fixed.

edited Apr 13 '17 at 12:24

Community

1

answered Jun 30 '15 at 23:03

nixpower

1,210
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18

1

Does not work :( – Freddy Jul 01 '15 at 03:22
3

Could you please be more specific as to what doesn't work? – nixpower Jul 01 '15 at 22:56
This worked for me. I also apt remove gdm3, although not sure if it was necessary. – DavidEG Dec 10 '17 at 07:58
Your solution worked for me thank you same my linux :) – ahmedbhs Apr 30 '18 at 21:08
I'm using Dell latitude 5580 and had similar issue time to time, formatted few times but the issues comes. This one worked for me and this only. Thanks a lot for saving my time. – Kandy Oct 16 '18 at 16:23

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 31 '18 at 18:24

4

I solved this issue like this:

Press CtrlAltF7
Press AltF2
Log in via terminal
Go to /etc/X11 and delete xorg.conf (or rename for backup)

edited Jul 31 '18 at 18:24

muru

197,895
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answered Jul 31 '18 at 15:51

Theemee

41

I have the same issue, but for me xorg.conf just absent in the /etc/X11 – ololobus Nov 11 '20 at 15:40

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 02 '16 at 19:45

I had the exact same issue, After messing around for 3-4 hours I finally got the ubuntu running.

Before I reboot the ubuntu I did install xubuntu by

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

and then I did

mkdir -p /var/lib/lightdm

chown -R lightdm:lightdm /var/lib/lightdm

chmod 0750 /var/lib/lightdm

So it installed xubuntu desktop but I got everything working fine.

This is how I did it.

I would suggest first try the 2nd part if that does not work then try the installing xubuntu desktop.

Hope it helps someone.

Thank you, it works for my case. – lykimq Apr 28 '20 at 14:03 — lykimq, Apr 28 '20 at 14:03

score 2 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 05 '18 at 02:31

Happened with me with gdm 3.28. The problem was nvidia driver (which was working fine few days before) After allowing software updater to install updates I shut it down and rebooted in morning to see this same error.

Solution:

Uninstalled nvidia driver (I used the .run file to install it)

Press Alt+F3 to access console mode

sudo nvidia-uninstall
shutdown now

Verdict: Do not update software from GUI if you have nvidia driver installed. Check if the update will affect any installed driver, especially if the driver isn't from ubuntu repositories

Freddy · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-07T05:57:12.957

2

I tried all the possible solutions mentioned in comment area and other answers. Unfortunately none of them work.

Solution that worked for me was format and re-install.

I had to format my laptop before re-installing. Because re-installing without format was not working. I mean computer starts normally but there were several bugs with WiFi, Bluetooth, USB, etc.

edited Jul 07 '15 at 05:57

answered Jul 03 '15 at 12:53

Freddy

1,349

i happen to get this issue as well, did you get it again?.. i want to be really sure if it doesn't happen again in post-format and re-install, otherwise. it wouldn't be worth it – Oscar Reyes Mar 19 '16 at 21:26
@nosthertus It's like a year...till now all working fine. – Freddy Apr 04 '16 at 08:26
1

format and re-install sure will work. You will probably loose previous experience on your system and a very good chance to improve your knowledge. – Augusto Sep 21 '19 at 17:30

score 1 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 08 '19 at 12:23

Start Ubuntu in recovery mode, (Esc->Advanced options->recovery mode). You have few things to check and correct, in particular my issue was solved after selecting and passing tow entries [dppk: repair broken packages], some upgrades where done and some obsolete packages removed. then i check entry: [grub: update grub bootloader] ... something was corrected! then i chose to boot ... then system boots normally! my point is if you can boot in recovery and check your fs ...etc. then no need to format/install.

score 1 · Answer 8 · edited Nov 25 '17 at 12:51

1

Enter a TTY with Ctrl+Alt+F6 and run:

sudo apt-get install LXDE

Then execute

startx

and then push start button left corner and the preferencs and the upper gfx settings adm and set all to default, and reboot and it might work fine this way.

edited Nov 25 '17 at 12:51

dessert

39,982

answered Jul 02 '15 at 17:53

Michael

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score 1 · Answer 9 · answered Sep 30 '15 at 00:22

You will get more details when running gdm manually in a virtual console (Ctrl + Alt + F1):

sudo gdm

For me, the problem was that gdm wasn't able to find /usr/bin/X, which led me to this bug. Turns out xserver-xorg was not installed somehow. The following line solves this particular problem.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg

Hope this helps.

score 1 · Answer 10 · edited Nov 25 '17 at 12:49

1

In my case with Ubuntu 17.10 in a Virtualbox VM the error occurred because the partition for Linux was full. I solved this problem this way:

Start the machine with using Linux live image (on CD, USB or so)
Mount the Linux partition and create space
Restart the machine

edited Nov 25 '17 at 12:49

dessert

39,982

answered Nov 23 '17 at 23:27

asukiaaa

111

GUI does not start

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