2

I was trying to learn how TTY's (teletypes or virtual terminals) in Ubuntu 18.04 work, so I pressed Ctrl+Alt+F1 , and the Login screen showed. According to the post " How do I switch between console mode and GUI in 17.10 and newer? ", I sould be able to return to GUI by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 . However, that did not work and nothing happened.

Keep in mind that, after pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1, what the corresponding Login Screen showed was a black screen with around 20 lines of white text, and with a blinking cursor at the bottom of the last line of text.

I then tried to switch to TTY3, TTY4, TTY5, TTY6 or TTY7, by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F3-7 ; however, none of that worked and nothing happened. The screen kept showing the Login Screen, with the same white text and the blinking cursor.

I finally had to use the REISUB method to restart my PC. This is the second time I launch TTY1 and something similar happened on the first one.

Edit:
I cannot type anything onto that TTY1. The cursor blinks but when I press any key from the alphabet, nothing shows up.
Regarding the white text I mentioned, the first time the problem happened, the screen showed very similar text to the text showed the second time the problem happened, with only few numbers changed. One of those changes is a different number in the fourth line, right after 'inode'. A transcription is as follows :

/dev/sdb2: clearing orphaned inode 4719982 (uid=1000, gid=1000, mode=0100644, si
/dev/sdb2: clearing orphaned inode 4718655 (uid=1000, gid=1000, mode=0100644, si
/dev/sdb2: clearing orphaned inode 4725500 (uid=1000, gid=1000, mode=0100644, si
/dev/sdb2: clearing orphaned inode 4719982 (uid=121, gid=1000, mode=0100644, size
/dev/sdb2: clean, 544187/7299072 files, 9720508/29173760 blocks

[OK] started LSB: automatic crash report generation.
[OK] started LSB: record successful boot for Grub. [OK] Created slice User Slice of gdm.
Starting User Manager for UID 121...
[OK] Started Session c1 of user gdm.
(there are more lines here in the middle, which I can transcribe if people ask for it)
[OK] Started Thunderbolt system service.
[OK] Started PackageKit Daemon.

So, why can't I exit from TTY1?
How can I fix this?

evaristegd
  • 353
  • @Gryu , thanks for the input. Are you using Ubuntu 18.04 too? – evaristegd Mar 04 '20 at 22:28
  • @Gryu , interesting. The keys CtrlAltF7 are supposed to take you to an unused tty, instead of taking you to a GUI. It looks like what this says does not apply to you then? – evaristegd Mar 04 '20 at 22:34
  • Those ~20 lines of text might be relevant, specially if they have to do with Xorg. What do they say? (If you can reproduce it) – Quasímodo Mar 04 '20 at 22:39
  • You do not need to reboot by SysRq, you can just login in TTY with your username and password, can't you? Then you can reboot or start a new X session. – Quasímodo Mar 04 '20 at 22:41
  • @Quasímodo , thanks for your input. I'll try to edit my post to answer your questions. – evaristegd Mar 04 '20 at 22:44
  • @Quasímodo , thanks again for the interest. I have now updated my post answering your questions. – evaristegd Mar 04 '20 at 23:05
  • You're welcome. The lines you showed look only to be reporting some sort of cleanup phase, maybe the error reporting is on the lines above. That's all I can say :( – Quasímodo Mar 04 '20 at 23:32
  • Maybe, it is better to say not Login Screen, but OS boot screen? Under Login screen I consider Login: prompt or welcome screen with Login prompt. – Gryu Mar 05 '20 at 00:06
  • @Quasímodo , those 'lines above' are very similar the first time the problem happened and the second time it did. I edited my explanation, so hopefully it's clearer now. From what I understand of what you said, there's no software error we can get from that text, right? – evaristegd Mar 05 '20 at 14:52
  • @Gryu , all the posts I found here in AskUbuntu refer to that screen as "Login Screen", that's why I used that term. But I agree with you on the confusion. To be clear, when I press CtrlAltF3, I do get a TTY3 with the message username login, and I can type in my username with no problem, because my keyboard works fine in that TTY3. – evaristegd Mar 05 '20 at 14:55
  • I remember I got something similar on rhel6, but that was worse because of switching to tty1 was not happening and I was stuck at tty1 without ability to switch to other ttys. Those vm was only accessible through ssh. – Gryu Mar 05 '20 at 15:13
  • @Gryu , interesting, that's exactly what's happening to me. I am stuck at TTY1 without the ability to switch to other TTY's. Which VM are you referring to? Sorry, I'm not too familiar with RHEL6. – evaristegd Mar 05 '20 at 15:43
  • 1
    No software error I can see from that text. You may inspect system log files when that happens. But even if you do find something, I am skeptical that a solution would be available, especially if the problem has to do with graphics drivers. Since few Ubuntu people use the consoles, I guess their glitches are under-reported. – Quasímodo Mar 05 '20 at 16:42

1 Answers1

0

Toggle function-keys pressing "F-Lock"
Stumpling right into the same problem, I've found the reason for - at least - my problem: Using a ms natural 4000 keyboard sometimes requires to toggle the Function-keys pressing "F-Lock"-key located next to F12.

(Toggling the Function-Key's might help with that type of keyboard too if you don't get hardcopies etc...)

Reference

As a workaround, ssh could be used to connect to server and kill user's session to see if system will automatically redirect you to your DM. Or reboot in soft way.

Gryu
  • 7,559
  • 9
  • 33
  • 52
  • I am using Ubuntu 18.04 and Ctrl+Alt+F8 takes me to an unused TTY, the same as Ctrl+Alt+F7 does. – evaristegd Mar 04 '20 at 22:44
  • When I said 'unused TTY', I was just using the term others used in one of my linked posts. On the TTY's corresponding to F7 and F8, I also get a black screen with just a blinking cursor at the top. – evaristegd Mar 04 '20 at 23:09
  • Good question, I just tried from F7 all the way up to F12 and they all give me the same thing: a black screen with a blinking cursor only. – evaristegd Mar 04 '20 at 23:17
  • I'm afraid of trying that F-lock trick with CtrlAltF1, because the locked-keyboard problem might happen again, and need my PC on at the moment. I did however try it with CtrlAltF3 and it didn't give me the TTY3 screen. Instead, it worked the same as Alt+fn+F3, sending the cursor to the address bar of my browser.
    Btw, I'm referring to the F-Lock-key as fn.     – evaristegd Mar 05 '20 at 15:01