Ubuntu

Gnome does not complete initialization Ubuntu 19-10

Asked by James Cobban

I installed Ubuntu 19-10 on a refurbished Dell Optiplex 9020, completely replacing the original Windows 10. Ubuntu 19-10 works fine when booted from the installation USB but when booted from the SDA Gnome never completes initialization so I am left looking at the startup display. Not being familiar with the internals of Gnome I cannot identify anything in the logs which might explain why Gnome is not coming up. The last message in the log is gnome-shell[1015]: Failed to DPMS: Failed to set connector 67 property 2: Permission denied. I cannot find an explanation of this message, or of how it could be possible that Gnome startup lacks permission to do anything. I am posting this message from the USB installer.

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
James Cobban
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Is the OS fully up to date or is this a new install which has never worked?

Revision history for this message
James Cobban (7-webmaster) said : 		#2

This is a fresh install. Since I cannot get into the system I cannot apply updates. I am running the hardware off the install USB which I have updated to the latest level in order to be able to run suggested diagnostic tools such as boot_repair. See https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2436558 for logs and other information about the system.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

If you drop to root recovery mode you can run updates there (assuming you have Web access set up easily (wired Internet helps here) or you can chroot to the installed OS from the Ubuntu USB based OS

Revision history for this message
James Cobban (7-webmaster) said : 		#4

Thank you. Fortunately the system is cabled to the router so I can conduct all of this discussion.

I have tried booting the system while holding down the shift key, but I do not see the grub menu. I have left the reconditioned system in its original mode which is legacy/BIOS rather than UEFI except to change the boot order to put USB first.

Previously I tried installing Ubuntu 19-10 beside Windows and did get into the system. I then applied all of the pending updates and the Gnome problem only occurred AFTER applying the updates and trying to reboot. So I reformatted the SDA and tried installing Ubuntu 19-10 as the sole operating system.

I have never done a chroot although I understand the theory. I observe that I am limited in what I can do on the SDA from the USB because on the USB I am running as user ubuntu and the files on the SDA have different owners, although I can bypass that by using sudo. On the USB the SDA is mounted at /media/ubuntu/67aed1dc-c6dd-4509-b413-1acd9fc2ca3f. So would I do something like:

sudo chroot --userspec myuserid:mygroup /media/ubuntu/67aed1dc-c6dd-4509-b413-1acd9fc2ca3f/home/myuserid sudo apt-get update

Would there be a benefit in editing the grub menu on the SDA to have it display the log instead of the meaningless graphic. I do not know if that will show anything other than what I see in syslog.

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#5

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UEFI

May help. I don't use UEFI myself and have no experience of it. I always turn it off on my systems.

Maybe others can help

Revision history for this message
James Cobban (7-webmaster) said : 		#6

After over a week during which every time I tried to boot from the SDA it hung without completing Gnome initialization I ended up doing everything from the USB installer, which at least permitted me to get useful work out of the system. Today trying to see if I could get into the grub menu by pressing shift. So I shut down the system, got the prompt to remote the installer USB, and the system came up without a hitch! Pressing shift still does not work. I then did apt-get update and apt-get upgrade and rebooted successfully and the system has been running fine since.

I did not do anything to the system because I couldn't. The system running from the USB did not have the authority, short of sudo, to alter anything on the SDA.

In guess I have to close this question because the problem no longer exists, but I am totally baffled.