Score:0

Rebooting borks Ubuntu 20.04

pt flag

I've been using the current installation without major problems for a half year now. A few days ago, when I booted up the PC, instead of the sequence I normally observe (a black screen, then the Nvidia logo popping up, then the login screen) a different sequence occurred. Namely black screen, then Ubuntu start-up logo at bottom of screen, then reams of code quickly scrolling up the screen, then a blinking cursor and that's it. No dice after that.

Thanks to Timeshift, I've been able to get the machine working again with the last backup I've made but without fail, after one, maximum two reboots the same thing happens again, and I have to Timeshift again.

I thought that maybe one of the automatic updates is responsible so I switched those off (also Livepatch) but that's not changed a thing.

I've also tried switching from the nvidia to the nouveau driver - same thing happens.

This is a Macbook Air from 2011, btw.

What do I do now?

David avatar
cn flag
Unless you can give some info on then reams of code quickly scrolling up the screen it is very hard to offer any help.
Axel Lieber avatar
pt flag
I'll try to take a picture next time I do this. Not keen on doing the whole song and dance again. Been through that a dozen times now.
darth_epoxy avatar
nl flag
First open a terminal and type `mokutil --sb-state` (to confirm that secure boot it off` then let us know th result. Next type `dmesg` and use some logic to pinpoint anything that looks like a FAIL during the boot. Don't post the whole thing it will be huge but if you spot something update your question and we might get a clue.
Axel Lieber avatar
pt flag
"This system doesn't support secure boot". I don't know what dmesg does. I'll try to read up about it in a bit. As you say, it returns tons of output. I'm just a regular user so I have no idea how I might identify problematic output though. I mean, this all looks alarming to me, lol. As an example there's this: [ 1.677048] tsc: Marking TSC unstable due to clocksource watchdog [ 1.677075] TSC found unstable after boot, most likely due to broken BIOS. Use 'tsc=unstable'.
darth_epoxy avatar
nl flag
Narrow it down with `dmesg | grep -i boot' and let us know. As for the secure boot check it confirms that secure boot is off and that's one less thing to worry about.
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