Score:2

Ubuntu

Ubuntu 21.10 upgrade crashes randomly with a black screen

Ankit Singhaniya

2/20/23, 7:54 AM

I just upgraded my Ubuntu 21.04 to 21.10 few days back and my system randomly crashes and show a black screen. They keys are also not functional and I cannot do anything but a force restart.

I've tried to see what the logs look like just after the crash and are a few important things that I see. Any idea what could be wrong?

Adding hardware information

OS: Ubuntu 21.10 x86_64 
Host: 20Y2CTO1WW ThinkPad P14s Gen 1 
Kernel: 5.13.0-20-generic 
Uptime: 8 hours 
Packages: 2265 (dpkg), 27 (snap) 
Shell: bash 5.1.8 
Resolution: 1920x1080 
DE: GNOME 40.5 
WM: Mutter 
WM Theme: Adwaita 
Theme: Yaru-dark [GTK2/3] 
Icons: Yaru [GTK2/3] 
Terminal: tilix 
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U with Radeon Graphics (16) @ 1.700GHz 
GPU: AMD ATI 08:00.0 Renoir 
Memory: 8058MiB / 21746MiB

also, let me know if you think there is something more that I can add.

Adding more information requested for extensions:

aks:~$ ls -al ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions
total 36
drwxrwxr-x 9 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:55 .
drwx------ 4 aks aks 4096 Oct 31 00:42 ..
drwxrwxr-x 5 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:55 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 8 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:43 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 4 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:43 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 7 aks aks 4096 Jun 25 15:33 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 3 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:43 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 3 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:43 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 3 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:53 [email protected]

and some more

aks:~$ ls -al /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Apr 20  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Oct 16 20:20 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Oct 16 20:16 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 16 20:16 [email protected]
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Oct 16 20:16 [email protected]

730

0 + 0

upgrade

crash

21.10

trond hansen

2/20/23, 8:25 AM

please add a bit more details about your setup,graphics,memory and more info from your logs..

user535733

2/20/23, 9:53 AM

Create a 21.10 LiveUSB. Do you have the same crashes in the LiveUSB's "Try Ubuntu" environment?

Ankit Singhaniya

2/20/23, 3:29 PM

@user535733 the crash happens randomly. Sometimes once in a few days so would be very difficult to reproduce that with live image.

Ankit Singhaniya

2/20/23, 3:29 PM

@trondhansen adding my system hardware details and can you please help me with which log file would you want to see?

heynnema

2/20/23, 6:36 PM

It's probably your AMD video driver... and to my understanding AMD has no driver compatible with 21.10. Do you know how to use nomodeset?

Ankit Singhaniya

2/22/23, 12:47 PM

@heynnema I've added nomodeset to my grub file. Will keep you posted if the crash happens even after adding that.

Ankit Singhaniya

2/23/23, 5:55 PM

@heynnema I tried with nomodeset and that broke my ability to tweak brightness so I"ve reverted that. Will be checking into your answer shortly.

heynnema

2/23/23, 6:07 PM

@AnkitSinghaniya Yes. Using nomodeset is just for testing purposes. Using it will disable the AMD driver, and let us know if that's what's causing the problem. It will also disable any customization of the video... but it's only temporary. Consider putting nomodeset back temporarily, until we determine if it's the video driver.

Silicomancer

4/25/23, 1:49 AM

@heynnema Are you sure there is no AMD driver for 21.10? Does that mean 21.10 can not be used (in a stable way) using an AMD graphics adapter?!

heynnema

4/25/23, 3:47 AM

@Silicomancer No I'm not. It requires some more research by the OP.

Score:0

Ubuntu

heynnema

2/22/23, 3:36 PM

BIOS

20Y2CTO1WW ThinkPad P14s Gen 1

It looks like you have an out-of-date BIOS R1BET65W (1.34). Get the latest version 1.36 here.

Have your SERIAL # handy to confirm that I have the correct update page for your computer.

Update #1:

gnome-shell extensions

dash-to-panel is known to have some problems. Other extensions may also have problems causing crashes.

Temporarily disable these extensions, then restart gnome-shell, or log out, then log in. See if the crashing has stopped.

drwxrwxr-x 5 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:55 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 7 aks aks 4096 Jun 25 15:33 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 3 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:43 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 3 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:43 [email protected]
drwxrwxr-x 3 aks aks 4096 Oct 16 20:53 [email protected]

0 + 0

Ankit Singhaniya

2/23/23, 5:54 PM

How did you identify that the BIOS version was old?

heynnema

2/23/23, 6:04 PM

@AnkitSinghaniya Just to confirm it, show me `sudo dmidecode -s bios-version`.

Ankit Singhaniya

2/24/23, 1:45 PM

`R1BET65W (1.34)` - I think I'm one version behind

heynnema

2/24/23, 1:55 PM

@AnkitSinghaniya That's not really old then. You can still update and see if it helps. If your machine worked with nomodeset, then you'll need to follow up on the AMD driver.

Ankit Singhaniya

2/25/23, 6:56 AM

I'm just wondering if the last version 21.04 didn't have these issues so I would assume that should at least carry forward.

heynnema

2/25/23, 1:15 PM

@AnkitSinghaniya Yes, but there's a newer kernel in 21.10, amongst various other changes. Show me `ls -al ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions` and `ls -al /usr/share/gnome-shell/extensions`.

heynnema

2/28/23, 2:57 AM

@AnkitSinghaniya Status please...

Ankit Singhaniya

2/28/23, 7:33 PM

Added the requested information. Sorry for the delay.

heynnema

2/28/23, 9:05 PM

@AnkitSinghaniya Please see Update #1 in my answer.

Ankit Singhaniya

3/1/23, 4:13 AM

Have disabled all extensions installed by me. Let's see how it goes.

Ankit Singhaniya

3/1/23, 4:32 PM

No crashes so far after disabling the gnome extensions, will wait a bit more and post updates.

heynnema

3/1/23, 4:57 PM

@AnkitSinghaniya Thanks for the update!

Ankit Singhaniya

3/3/23, 6:12 AM

Still, no crashes seems like the gnome extension was the problem

heynnema

3/3/23, 2:07 PM

@AnkitSinghaniya Good news! Now re-enable one at a time to determine which one it is. I'd suspect `dash-to-panel` first. Please remember to accept my answer by clicking on the checkmark icon that appears just to the left of my answer. Thanks!

heynnema

3/10/23, 12:42 AM

@AnkitSinghaniya Status please...

heynnema

4/25/23, 3:38 AM

@AnkitSinghaniya You have BIOS 1.34. 1.36 is found at the link I provided.

heynnema

4/25/23, 3:45 AM

@AnkitSinghaniya Since my answer solved your problem, please remember to accept it by clicking on the checkmark icon that appears just to the left of my answer. Thanks!

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Ubuntu 21.10 upgrade crashes randomly with a black screen

TH: การอัพเกรด Ubuntu 21.10 ล้มเหลวแบบสุ่มด้วยหน้าจอสีดำ

RO: Upgrade-ul Ubuntu 21.10 se blochează aleatoriu cu un ecran negru

RU: Обновление Ubuntu 21.10 случайно вылетает с черным экраном

VI: Nâng cấp Ubuntu 21.10 gặp sự cố ngẫu nhiên với màn hình đen

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.