Linux Mint 19.1 Hangs at Boot Screen [SOLVED]

Alexzee

Alexzee

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I installed Linux Mint 19.1 several years ago for a friend on his custom build 64-bit desktop.
He now has the new Grub menu after an upgrade of Grub.

Linux Mint is hanging at the boot screen.
By boot screen I mean the all black screen with the LM Logo and the small handful of dots under the logo.

What could be causing the boot to hang and how would I fix that?
 
Last edited:


G'day Alex

Still waking up on my morning coffees, but first question I would ask is

1. Being a "Mintie", has he been using Timeshift?

Then

2. How has he been performing his updates, via the Update Manager shield in systray, by Terminal, or Synaptic, or other?

I'll have more, I expect, soon.

BTW - has he got a Live Mint USB stick available, or can he/you generate one?

Chris
 
wizardfromoz said:
G'day Alex

Still waking up on my morning coffees, but first question I would ask is

1. Being a "Mintie", has he been using Timeshift?

Then

2. How has he been performing his updates, via the Update Manager shield in systray, by Terminal, or Synaptic, or other?

I'll have more, I expect, soon.

BTW - has he got a Live Mint USB stick available, or can he/you generate one?

Chris
Click to expand...
No, he has not used Timeshift.
My friend uses the Update Manager to perform the updates.

Yes he/I have the Linux Mint 19.1 Live CD/DVD.

His computer has 3 Linux os's on it.

/dev/sda is Debian 9 Stretch
/dev/sdb is Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 and
dev/sdc is Linux Mint 19.1.

I can boot into the other 2 distro's if you need me to. Just let me know.
 
1. Mint 19.1, is it Tessa MATE, Cinnamon, or Xfce?

Alexzee said:
By boot screen I mean the all black screen with the LM Logo and the small handful of dots under the logo.
Click to expand...

2. So he's getting a Grub Menu to begin with, and when he selects Tessa, or the default time expires, it is going as far as described above, and then hanging - are the dots changing from white to green to white or do they freeze?

3. Is Tessa in the primary partition (top spot on Grub Menu) or other?

I would be likely to first look to going into Tessa's advanced options from the Grub Menu and choosing the first option that says "Recovery", and choose to drop to a shell as root, then reinstall grub and update grub, from within the shell.

I know the updates to grub you refer to, if that got compromised then it could be influencing the bootup.

Commands as root in the shell would be

Code: 
grub-install /dev/sdc
update-grub
reboot

Wiz
 
wizardfromoz said:
1. Mint 19.1, is it Tessa MATE, Cinnamon, or Xfce?



2. So he's getting a Grub Menu to begin with, and when he selects Tessa, or the default time expires, it is going as far as described above, and then hanging - are the dots changing from white to green to white or do they freeze?

3. Is Tessa in the primary partition (top spot on Grub Menu) or other?

I would be likely to first look to going into Tessa's advanced options from the Grub Menu and choosing the first option that says "Recovery", and choose to drop to a shell as root, then reinstall grub and update grub, from within the shell.

I know the updates to grub you refer to, if that got compromised then it could be influencing the bootup.

Commands as root in the shell would be

Code: 
grub-install /dev/sdc
update-grub
reboot

Wiz
Click to expand...
Yes it's 19.1 Linux Mint Mate.

The dots are not changing instead they freeze and are all green while frozen.

Linux Mint Debian Edition 4 is the primary partition at the top of the Grub Menu.
 
OK, sleep well, friend :)

I'll put together some more ideas, and place them here over the time I have until I clock off my tonight.

Wiz
 
Alex

wizardfromoz said:
'll put together some more ideas, and place them here over the time I have until I clock off my tonight.
Click to expand...

Sorry mate, had physio for Elaine today and I have perhaps major dental tomorrow, may get a bit behind with this.

Wizard
 
Alexzee said:
I installed Linux Mint 19.1 several years ago for a friend on his custom build 64-bit desktop.
He now has the new Grub menu after an upgrade of Grub.

Linux Mint is hanging at the boot screen.
By boot screen I mean the all black screen with the LM Logo and the small handful of dots under the logo.

What could be causing the boot to hang and how would I fix that?
Click to expand...
If you press Esc where you see the Mint Logo you will actually see what is happening in the background, chances are that you will see what is hanging that will at least give you a clue as in what is wrong and where to look to fix it.
 
f33dm3bits said:
If you press Esc where you see the Mint Logo you will actually see what is happening in the background, chances are that you will see what is hanging that will at least give you a clue as in what is wrong and where to look to fix it.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the tip. I'll try that.
 
Before booting into Mint I decided to boot into Debian and update Grub.
The next time I booted my friends pc into Mint it did not hang and the white dots under the logo filled with green and Mint eventually booted.

If Mint hangs again I know what to do now: thanks to our Wizard.;)
 
That's great news Alex :)

If I might suggest, if your friend's HDD has spare capacity, it could be good to set up a discrete Timeshift partition that could be used for all 3 Distros. I would suggest 50 - 100 GB at the end of the drive, where it can be expanded on using GParted if need be.

The Tessa MATE and LMDE 4 "Debbie" already have Timeshift installed, of course.

With Stretch, you can either download the .deb from Tony's Github presence

https://github.com/teejee2008/Timeshift/releases

... choose the timeshift-v20.03-amd64.deb

and install with

sudo dpkg -i timeshift-v20.03-amd64.deb #see below

or I can tell you how to install it using a PPA on Debian, involves installing software-properties-common first.

# if there is a dependency issue with eg libgee-0.8-2, then it can be remedied with

sudo apt-get -y install libgee-0.8-2

Any questions on Timeshift by you or your friend, should you choose to accept this mission and you are caught, the Agency will disavow all knowledge of your existence, and this tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds.

Translated, any questions on Timeshift, see me at

https://www.linux.org/threads/timeshift-similar-solutions-safeguard-recover-your-linux.15241/

Cheers

Wizard
 
Thanks Wizard-:)

I will encourage my friend to use Timeshift on his 3 systems and take snapshot's of them.
I think he has plenty of room on each HDD:-

I'll see if Timeshift is in his Synaptic on Debian. It might be.

My friend told me to tell you Thank You!

Self destruct in 10 seconds....Ha! Ha! LOL
 
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