Desktop not loading - tried everything but still just a black screen

[Enigma0]

Well, the login screen is completely messed up also. That would point to there being a non-user-specific system issue ya?

[wizard10000]

Well, the login screen is completely messed up also. That would point to there being a non-user-specific system issue ya

Yup. That pretty much indicates X is kinda broken but we did fix all sorts of other stuff

I would like a second opinion before we go much farther, but my gut response would be to remove the Nvidia drivers and their corresponding X configuration and use the open-source driver at least temporarily. The open-source Nvidia driver (it's called nouveau) does not require xorg configuration. Do you do any gaming on this machine? I personally prefer the open-source driver (fewer headaches, smaller memory footprint) but it's entirely up to you.

I'd like to ask - did you configure xorg manually or using nvidia-xconfig (which IMO is kinda broken)? Your X configuration should be in /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d and there should *not* be an xorg.conf in /etc/X11.

[Enigma0]

I did attempt to purge Nvidia drivers and switch to nouveau via command line but perhaps I didn't do it completely or did it too soon (maybe before wiping local user data). Ended up reinstalling nvidia-current after it didn't appear to help.

It's purely a server machine with a crappy 9400 gt so open source is fine with me so long as it doesn't bork my VM's (which I doubt it will). My main/gaming rigs are AMD.

I definitely did run sudo nvidia-xconfig a few times.

This is what I have in /etc/X11:

[FONT=sans-serif]app-defaults/                        rgb.txt                              xorg.conf.backup                     Xreset.d/                            Xsession.options[/FONT]
[FONT=sans-serif]cursors/                             xinit/                               xorg.conf.dist-upgrade-201701061634  Xresources/                          xsm/[/FONT]
[FONT=sans-serif]default-display-manager              xkb/                                 xorg.conf.nvidia-xconfig-original    Xsession                             Xwrapper.config[/FONT]
[FONT=sans-serif]fonts/                               xorg.conf.01112017                   Xreset                               Xsession.d/[/FONT]

I don't appear to have a /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d

[Enigma0]

I deleted the xorg.conf.*s listed and ran sudo apt-get remove --purge nvidia-* && sudo apt-get install --reinstall xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

Still same screwed up login screen.

If it matters:

uname -a
Linux 4.8.0-34-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Wed Dec 21 17:24:18 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[Snowhog]

You are a determined person. If my system were behaving as yours is, I wouldn't have spent the time or effort you have; so far; in trying to get it back. I would backup what I didn't want to loose from my /home directory to a USB stick and then nuke the system by reinstalling the OS and marking the /home partition for formatting during installation. End up with a virgin installation and then do any customizing afterwards, being sure to document what you are doing, either with a text editor or 'old school' with notes on paper. It is SO MUCH EASIER to resolve a problem when it presents, when you have good notes about what was done up to the point of the problem.

[Enigma0]

You are a determined person. If my system were behaving as yours is, I wouldn't have spent the time or effort you have; so far; in trying to get it back. I would backup what I didn't want to loose from my /home directory to a USB stick and then nuke the system by reinstalling the OS and marking the /home partition for formatting during installation. End up with a virgin installation and then do any customizing afterwards, being sure to document what you are doing, either with a text editor or 'old school' with notes on paper. It is SO MUCH EASIER to resolve a problem when it presents, when you have good notes about what was done up to the point of the problem.

Yeah I have a few reasons for that. Firstly, this has happened before and I did reinstall 16.04 fresh from a USB install. So this being the 2nd time this has happened on the same system effectively just from updates and a reboot (not something that should cause a problem), I really REALLY want to know exactly why it keeps failing as I actually like Kubuntu the best of all the Debian distros.

In addition, I have a couple deeply/semi-deeply integrated servers (a mumble server, a plex server with associated fstab shares, NFS shares) in addition to a handful of VM systems. Yes I certainly could go through the day or mores worth of effort in backing up all of that and reinstalling the system again but I digress - there seems to be a good chance this will occur again and I think learning how to fix it is probably the best way forward.

Setting up all the server stuff/shares is not trivial and there's no GUI to assist with hardly any of it. yet anyway?

I don't actually care one bit about anything in the /home path unless something is there that's important that I am not thinking of.

[Enigma0]

As I mentioned my system wen't from fully working to this state merely from the update script I posted in the OP and a reboot:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get autoremove -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

I hardly touch the system except to interact with VM's via VMWare Workstation and the run the update script and reboot it. Other than that it just sits there.

[wizard10000]

Okay. I'm gonna leave Kubuntu solutions for awhile. Take a look here - consiidering we're using a proprietary driver Debian's readme is appropriate. It used to say that using nvidia-xconfig was not recommended, but that seems to have changed.

Take a look at what the xorg configuration Debian recommends is -

https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#configure

That should get you a working desktop with the proper OEM drivers. If you'd prefer to use nouveau you would archive your xorg configuration just in case and blacklist the Nvidia driver. You can keep both sets of drivers installed and just blacklist one or the other but out of the box nouveau doesn't need any xorg configuration.

This might also help - if I'm looking for solid answers three places I look are Debian, Arch and Gentoo.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/NVIDIA

[Enigma0]

Somewhat confused by what you are suggesting then. Even so I switched back and installed nvidia-340 and ran and ran sudo nvidia-xconfig which gave me:

sudo nvidia-xconfig

WARNING: Unable to locate/open X configuration file.

Package xorg-server was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `xorg-server.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'xorg-server' found
New X configuration file written to '/etc/X11/xorg.conf'

That xorg.conf contains:

# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig# nvidia-xconfig:  version 340.98  (buildmeister@swio-display-x86-rhel47-06)  Mon Sep 19 18:06:25 PDT 2016

Section "ServerLayout"
   Identifier     "Layout0"
   Screen      0  "Screen0"
   InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
   InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   # generated from default
   Identifier     "Mouse0"
   Driver         "mouse"
   Option         "Protocol" "auto"
   Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
   Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
   Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
   # generated from default
   Identifier     "Keyboard0"
   Driver         "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
   Identifier     "Monitor0"
   VendorName     "Unknown"
   ModelName      "Unknown"
   HorizSync       28.0 - 33.0
   VertRefresh     43.0 - 72.0
   Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
   Identifier     "Device0"
   Driver         "nvidia"
   VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
   Identifier     "Screen0"
   Device         "Device0"
   Monitor        "Monitor0"
   DefaultDepth    24
   SubSection     "Display"
       Depth       24
   EndSubSection
EndSection

Still, it seems like you maybe glossed over an important issue in that I have no /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d. Shouldn't I have that folder?

[MoonRise]

I hate the direction I sent you was a dead-end. Past my last post I have no idea other than what Wiz is directing here. This is just one odd issue. From the messed up log-in screen I guess you can log-in? No?

[Enigma0]

I hate the direction I sent you was a dead-end. Past my last post I have no idea other than what Wiz is directing here. This is just one odd issue. From the messed up log-in screen I guess you can log-in? No?

Quite alright - I'll take anything being as dead in the water as I still am.

Yeah I can definitely log in despite not being able to see the box where the password gets entered.

I still get dropped to this:

All shell packages missing.
This is an installation issue, please contact your distribution

And here I am

[MoonRise]

That is just so weird. That last statement I would have expected something to show up error wise. Some missing dependency or something. I'll continue to check around guys I know. Though I can say, at this point I would do what Snowhog stated. Trust me, I've done that a few times after I screwed my system playing around. Though to me that is half the fun. Sick, I know!

[Enigma0]

It seems like there is some core instability that's breaking my system periodically. As mentioned, this has happened before so spending days reinstalling/re-configuring only to probably see the same issue down the road is not encouraging.

I mean it could be that I always auto-update the kernel and delete the old ones maybe? Is plasma shell tied to that somehow? Is there a more complete way of reinstalling the missing shell packages or figuring out where the popup is coming from?

I've got nothing but I'm surprised I haven't been asked for some logs somewhere. I don't know anything about what logs where and the error doesn't tell me so here I am.

So just to re-iterate, these seem to be problems:

Package xorg-server was not found in the pkg-config search path.
Perhaps you should add the directory containing `xorg-server.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'xorg-server' found

I tried to install xorg-server but apt said it doesn't exist.

I have no /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/

[MoonRise]

That is kind of what lead me to ask about the repository list but what you posted seemed correct. I can't say for sure as I don't have the version installed anywhere and what I have is Maui centric. Maybe someone else in this chain can post their repository list for a side by side.

[wizard10000]

Take your time as I'm about to hang it up for the evening, but is this your bug?

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...d/+bug/1576500

edit: You mentioned error logs; did you find them? /var/log/Xorg.0.log and Xorg.0.log.old

That's where the current and previous X sessions are logged. apt also writes logfiles there, might be worth a look.