Ubuntu randomly started blinking the screen on boot

Question

I used my Ubuntu Desktop yesterday as usual, but now I can't boot in because the screen keeps flickering to a black screen and a verbose boot screen where I see no failure or errors. I can ALT-F2 and see the login, but it stills flickers so I can't type correctly my password. I didn't install anything particular, I've searched a little and people talk about NVIDIA drivers, but I didn't install anything like this yesterday, what can I do?

Thanks for helping.

dpkg -l *nvidia* | grep ii returns

 nvidia-375               375.66-0ubuntu0.16.04.1
 nvidia-opencl-icd-375    375.66-0ubuntu0.16.04.1
 nvidia-prime             0.8.2
 nvidia-settings          361.42-0ubuntu1

Might be due to lightdm display manager. This might help: https://askubuntu.com/questions/223501/ubuntu-gets-stuck-in-a-login-loop — Paulbert Thomas, Jul 19 '17 at 16:48

heynnema · Accepted Answer · 2023-11-19T15:02:51.273

8

Uninstall the Windows driver that allows you to read/write to Ubuntu EXT4 partitions.
To check the file system on your Ubuntu partition...

boot to the GRUB menu
choose Advanced Options
choose Recovery mode
choose Root access
at the # prompt, type sudo fsck -f /
repeat the fsck command if there were errors
type reboot

Update #1:

boot to the GRUB menu
select Ubuntu
hit the e key
use arrow keys to move
find the line that has "quiet splash"
add nomodeset, so "quiet splash nomodeset"
hit F10 to exit and continue boot
see if it flickers

Update #2:

Your recently installed Nvidia driver is causing your problem. In maintenance mode, uninstall/purge all *nvidia* software, reboot, then use Software & Updates, Additional Drivers tab, to reinstall Nvidia tested version, then reboot.

edited Nov 19 '23 at 15:02

answered Jul 19 '17 at 14:36

heynnema

70,711

I don't think this is it, I had the same problem before installing the driver to read my Linux partition, I installed it like 10 min ago to get some files onto my Windows partition. – Drakota Jul 19 '17 at 14:42
@Drakota did you perform the fsck? – heynnema Jul 19 '17 at 14:50
Yes and I didn't get any error messages and I still get the flickering. – Drakota Jul 19 '17 at 14:51
Did it flicker when you did the fsck? Do you have Nvidia? – heynnema Jul 19 '17 at 14:54
No, I didn't get any flickering. – Drakota Jul 19 '17 at 14:55
Do you have Nvidia? If so, what version? From the Ubuntu repos, or Nvidia web site? – heynnema Jul 19 '17 at 15:00
I'm not sure about the specific version, but I used the one in the Software & Updates tab and I choose the first proprietary one. – Drakota Jul 19 '17 at 15:02
1

Go back to the # prompt and type dpkg -l *nvidia* | grep ii and copy/paste results into your question. – heynnema Jul 19 '17 at 15:05
Do Update #1. Report back. – heynnema Jul 19 '17 at 15:54
Tried Update #1 still flickering unfortunately – Drakota Jul 19 '17 at 16:39
With nomodeset, I've managed to access the terminal using CTRL+ALT F2. Tried doing update upgrade dist-upgrade nothing changed – Drakota Jul 19 '17 at 16:46

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 30 '19 at 11:51

2

I recently had the blinking screen on a dual boot Ubuntu 18 and Windows 10 machine and the boot sequence seemed to be stuck. When I tried CTRL+ALT+DEL a message was displayed that unattended updates was in progress. At some point the blinking stopped and a finished message appeared. The machine rebooted, and everything was normal after that.

edited Aug 30 '19 at 11:51

fossfreedom

172,746

answered Aug 30 '19 at 08:47

Ray Oei

121

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 19 '17 at 18:12

1

I installed bumblebee-nvidia in a terminal session and was able to login. Still haven't figured what happened in the first place, but at least it works for now. Thanks for the help everyone.

answered Jul 19 '17 at 18:12

Drakota

103

For what it's worth, I installed bumblebee just now, rebooted and there was no blinking display. It had just started to do that a few updates ago, so I have no idea which one caused it as I often put the computer to sleep at night. – Christopher Apr 16 '18 at 13:59

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 07 '20 at 22:04

I had exactly the same problem today. My Ubuntu 18.04 had been working like forever, but today it wouldn't allow me to ssh into. A reboot paused somewhere with no apparent errors, with screening flickering. Pressing ALT+F2 showed the login prompt, but with screening flickering, no matter how fast I typed, the login was not correct.

In the end, it turned out it's my root partition was full. A specific program was generating data continuously and filled up the partition.

The quickest way to free up more space would be go to recovery mode in GRUB, then go to the root shell.

Ubuntu randomly started blinking the screen on boot

4 Answers4

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