Score:0

Ubuntu 20.04 (update broke system stuck at "a start job is running")

us flag

BACKGROUND:

So I updated Ubuntu today.

Nvidia appears to have made Nvidia driver 460 unavailable which is what my system was using.

So I swapped to Nvidia 510 using:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-driver-510

Then I rebooted and my desktop failed to boot.

I went into the recovery mode and swapped to the xorg drivers.

After this my system booted fine. Unfortunately, I was unable to do GPU related tasks and my GPU wasn't being utilized probably.

So I attempted to swap to 510 again and updated some drivers.

Upon restarting my system failed to boot.

I jumped into the recovery mode and ran the following command:

apt purge nvidia && apt install nvidia-driver-510

I then ran modprobe Nvidia and it worked. Nvidia-smi also connected great!

THE ACTUAL ISSUE:

I tried to boot the system after successfully fixing Nvidia 510. However, I'm now stuck at "a start job is running" with no time limit.

I attempted opening the recovery menu but keyboard is frozen and I can't select root.

No idea where to go from here. My system seems completely bricked.

Joepie Es avatar
eg flag
Did you try the NVidia 470-driver? Maybe the step from 460 to 510 was too big.
Fabio avatar
us flag
Maybe but I'm still not sure how to actually get into my computer. I think I need to fresh install. I was able to get access to all my files from a bootable drive though.
Score:0
ua flag

You should be able to get into your computer this way:

Go to your login screen and press CTRL-ALT-F2, to get to the console. At the console prompt, login with your username and password. Once you're at your shell prompt, type sudo apt install nvidia-driver-460 to get back to your working driver. Then reboot.

(This worked for me when trying to upgrade from the 470 driver to the 510 driver, which upgrade failed.)

Another way would be to -- before you get to your login screen -- press ESC (or whichever key puts you at the GRUB menu), select "advanced", and then select "drop into a root shell" and type sudo apt install nvidia-driver-460 from there. Good luck!

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