Linux Mint: Black screen with mouse pointer after login.

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Steady_Eddie

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Hi all, I have been using Linux Mint (Cinnamon desktop) without issue for some time. Today when I started the computer and logged in I was greeted with a black screen and a mouse pointer only, no desktop.

I searched and found posts relating to the same issue on Google where a solution has been found, however, the solutions offered do not work for me or seem to be specific to the user's computer. A couple of examples of what I found are shown below:

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=126293

https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=256516

I used the inxi -Fxz and cat /etc/default/grub commands to generate two photos that may be of assistance.

1.jpg
View attachment 3456

Should you require logs please include an instruction as to how to produce them, thank you.

I do not have the skills to be able to troubleshoot and resolve this issue and so am asking if someone could please take a look and help me with this?
 


G'day Steady Eddie, and Welcome to Linux.org.

I am spreading the word mate. The aussie I am looking for has probably already gone to bed.......he will resurface tomorrow morning, your time. He is an early bird. There are quite a few from other parts of the world who will no doubt look in as they come awake.

There are two fields of thought going at the moment. One is my thought that your video card driver has perhaps thrown in the towel/become corrupted .....(Nvidia GK106 (GeForce GTX 660)

I am not up to figuring out how to purge the old driver and reinstall the proprietary driver....not even sure if that is the correct course to follow.

The other field of thought is to boot to your installation dvd, then chroot from it into your System and reinstall grub and reboot. Beyond my paygrade. The aussie I am waiting on will no doubt have some thoughts on that approach.

In the meantime I am just going to drop your machine's specs here to save others asking for them


CPU: Intel Core [email protected]
GPU: Nvidia GK106 (GeForce GTX 660)
Memory: 16 GiB DDR3 (Corsair Vengeance)
Motherboard: ASUS B85M-G
Power: Corsair CX750M

The version is Linux Mint 18.3.

I do not have Timeshift enabled.

I do not have a backup.

Not receiving any error messages, the machine boots fine and produces a login screen, I enter my credentials and that is when the problem starts.


Again, welcome....and rest assured , you will not be 'abandoned' here.

Brian
 
Thanks
Condobloke said:
G'day Steady Eddie, and Welcome to Linux.org.

I am spreading the word mate. The aussie I am looking for has probably already gone to bed.......he will resurface tomorrow morning, your time. He is an early bird. There are quite a few from other parts of the world who will no doubt look in as they come awake.

There are two fields of thought going at the moment. One is my thought that your video card driver has perhaps thrown in the towel/become corrupted .....(Nvidia GK106 (GeForce GTX 660)

I am not up to figuring out how to purge the old driver and reinstall the proprietary driver....not even sure if that is the correct course to follow.

The other field of thought is to boot to your installation dvd, then chroot from it into your System and reinstall grub and reboot. Beyond my paygrade. The aussie I am waiting on will no doubt have some thoughts on that approach.

In the meantime I am just going to drop your machine's specs here to save others asking for them


CPU: Intel Core [email protected]
GPU: Nvidia GK106 (GeForce GTX 660)
Memory: 16 GiB DDR3 (Corsair Vengeance)
Motherboard: ASUS B85M-G
Power: Corsair CX750M

The version is Linux Mint 18.3.

I do not have Timeshift enabled.

I do not have a backup.

Not receiving any error messages, the machine boots fine and produces a login screen, I enter my credentials and that is when the problem starts.


Again, welcome....and rest assured , you will not be 'abandoned' here.

Brian
Click to expand...
Thank you for you help with this Brian, very kind of you chap.
 
Hi Eddie, and welcome! I've been up working a 12-hr night shift, so I'm not at peak performance right now (and I like to make excuses :D)... but let's jump in. I think that @wizardfromoz is closer to your time zone, and he may provide better help after his morning 'cuppa'. Thanks for the screenshots!

I read into the couple of links you gave, and followed some additional links from those as well. I'm afraid we may ask you to duplicate some things which you've already tried, but for which we didn't see your results. One of the links led me to this article which was going to be my starting point anyway. A black screen with Nvidia is a somewhat common problem, but you do have a bit of a twist on it because of seeing your mouse cursor. Anyway, this below is a simple thing to try if you can see your GRUB boot menu when booting. If you don't normally see the GRUB screen, some folks recommend to hold down the left Shift key while booting to get the GRUB menu.... but that doesn't work for me, and instead I have to just tap the ESC key once while booting (okay, maybe twice, but not repeatedly or it puts you at the grub> prompt, which is not where you want to be). It's a timing thing, so you might have to work with it a bit. The GRUB screen has just 2 or 3 items listed on it usually, with your Linux Mint at the very top. The GRUB screen has a 10 second timer, so once you get here you'll have to take the actions below before the timeout expires.

At the GRUB screen:

1) Press 'e' to enter 'edit' mode

2) In the next screen, use your arrow keys to get near the bottom, on the line that starts with 'linux', and at or near the end shows 'quiet splash' (possibly followed by one or more other commands, and possibly wrapping around onto a 2nd line).

3) Use the arrow keys to get to the very end of the line mentioned above, beyond 'quiet splash'... and enter a new command: nomodeset

4) So the end of that line may look something like: ..... 'quiet splash nomodeset' or 'quiet splash (other commands) nomodeset' (don't use the quote marks though)

5) With that command added, use CTRL-X or F10 to boot now with the nomodeset command included, and see if you get your screen.

If it works, it may have a different resolution than what you have previously set, and Cinnamon may go into 'software rendering mode' (which isn't something you want to remain stuck with). Also, if it works, there may be various ways to proceed after this... so I think I'll just pause for now rather than go into options that may or may not even be necessary until we find out if nomodeset works or not.

Cheers
 
Mornin' all, just finished me second cuppa

(Wizard appears in a puff of smoke brandishing empty coffee cup, goes back for more)

G'day @Steady_Eddie and a hearty welcome to linux.org , if you enjoy it a half as much as Brian and I do since arriving here May last year, you will stick around ;)

Stan's (@atanere 's) nomodeset option is a tried and true problem solver so see how that goes first.

If no joy, it is good that you have an installation DVD, always handy for troubleshooting. We could use that as Brian has said, to "chroot", and try some fixes as if you were inside your System.

I have a Mint 18.3 kicking around on one computer or another, I will swing into it and check out a few things during the morning. Gotta nick into town (Stanthorpe) first.

I believe that the OP and I might likely be on exactly the same timezone, so that makes things easy :D

Cheers

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
Just a BTW to the above ... @Steady_Eddie - if you find answers elsewhere, whether complete or incomplete, do bring us up to speed.

I may be a Wizard but my mind reading skills are rusty, so I don't want to do a lot of prep work and then find you have a satisfactory solution. Cool?

Cheers

Wiz
 
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