Black screen after log-in - help!

[BSAB_80]

Some packages upgraded during the night, didn't notice which ones, and at one point yesterday the system froze up and I had to restart. First I re-encountered the same problem I have after some updates where the log-in text is enormous, so I had to edit /etc/kde4/kdm/kdmrc to -dpi 96 in the server command line, which solved the problem, but now when I log in to kde I only get a black screen with the mouse pointer, and that's it.
Tried to reconfigure the xserver as advisedin other thread but to no avail.
Also followed a suggestion in another thread to edit ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc and change Compositing to Enabled=false, but the only thing that caused was that instead of a black screen now I have the wallpaper of the log-in screen but still just the mouse pointer and no actual desktop.

Just tried something else that I read here, mv my kde folder to kde4backup and still nothing!
I'm at my wit's end here.

Anyone can help?
I'm running KDE4 (.2, maybe? Not sure)

[BSAB_80]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

Any ideas?
Or should I just give up altogether and install windows?

[Tecumseh]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

I have had the same problem after a lot of updates recently. The sollution that worked for me was stopping running X and deleting plasmarc from the kde config dir.

Switch to terminal with ALT+F1, login as user.

Issue "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop"
after that remove the plasmarc file "rm ~/.kde/share/config/plasmarc" and restart X with "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm start"

I am typing this from memory so you'll want to check the filename/path

[BSAB_80]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

No luck, doesn't seem to be a plasmarc in there. I moved all my /kde to a kde4backup, so I guess that file got moved too. I deleted it from that location, just in case, but no luck.
Still stuck on the black screen with the poor lonely mouse pointer...

[Tecumseh]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

What version of kubuntu are you running and where did you get the kde 4.2 version from?

[BSAB_80]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

Latest kubuntu, and everything is from the oficial repos!

[flarson]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

This sounds like trouble loading the Window Manager, which is done from /etc/X11/Xsession, I think. You should look in /var/log/syslog and /var/log/daemon.log to see if it mentions any errors. Mine usually shows "kdm_greet[9759]: Cannot open default user face" which is not really a problem. If you see other right after that they are probably a clue.

Have you tried selecting a different session type at the login (Greeter) window? Failsafe should get you an xterm at least.

If you run "ps axf" in a different Virtual Terminal (eg Ctl-Alt-F1) before you login you should see something like
7879 tty7 SLs+ 0:50 \_ /usr/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :0 vt7 -auth /var/run/xauth/A:0-jIEIy1
10447 ? S 0:00 \_ -:0
10487 ? Sl 0:00 \_ /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kdm_greet

which shows the greeter waiting for you to login. After you login it should look more like
7879 tty7 RLs+ 0:55 \_ /usr/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :0 vt7 -auth /var/run/xauth/A:0-jIEIy1
10447 ? S 0:00 \_ -:0
10563 ? Ss 0:00 \_ /bin/sh /usr/bin/x-session-manager
10695 ? Ss 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/gpg-agent --daemon --sh --write-env-file=/h ome/flarson/.gnupg/gpg
10696 ? Ss 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/gpg-agent --daemon --sh --write-env-file=/home/flarson/.gnupg/ gpg-agent-info-Orion-F
10788 ? S 0:00 \_ kwrapper4 ksmserver

Do you see this?

[BSAB_80]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

Let's see...
I tried failsafe from the login screen, but it doesn't log in, just dumps me back into the log in screen after a few seconds.

I'm a noob, so I have no idea how to acess those logs from the command line, sorry!

The ps act shows me the kdm_greet before log in, but after I don't even know what I'm looking for...

This sounds like trouble loading the Window Manager, which is done from /etc/X11/Xsession, I think. You should look in /var/log/syslog and /var/log/daemon.log to see if it mentions any errors. Mine usually shows "kdm_greet[9759]: Cannot open default user face" which is not really a problem. If you see other right after that they are probably a clue.

Have you tried selecting a different session type at the login (Greeter) window? Failsafe should get you an xterm at least.

If you run "ps axf" in a different Virtual Terminal (eg Ctl-Alt-F1) before you login you should see something like
7879 tty7 SLs+ 0:50 \_ /usr/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :0 vt7 -auth /var/run/xauth/A:0-jIEIy1
10447 ? S 0:00 \_ -:0
10487 ? Sl 0:00 \_ /usr/lib/kde4/libexec/kdm_greet

which shows the greeter waiting for you to login. After you login it should look more like
7879 tty7 RLs+ 0:55 \_ /usr/bin/X -br -nolisten tcp :0 vt7 -auth /var/run/xauth/A:0-jIEIy1
10447 ? S 0:00 \_ -:0
10563 ? Ss 0:00 \_ /bin/sh /usr/bin/x-session-manager
10695 ? Ss 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/gpg-agent --daemon --sh --write-env-file=/h ome/flarson/.gnupg/gpg
10696 ? Ss 0:00 \_ /usr/bin/gpg-agent --daemon --sh --write-env-file=/home/flarson/.gnupg/ gpg-agent-info-Orion-F
10788 ? S 0:00 \_ kwrapper4 ksmserver

Do you see this?

r

[flarson]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

To look at the logs in a terminal use "sudo less /var/log/syslog". This will show you a page at a time, and the space bar will move you to a new page. b will move you back one page. q will get you out of less. The ps command shows which processes are running on your system, and the f shows it in a tree of which process spawned which other process. The black screen seems to be because a process that should start is not starting. The output of "ps axf" will show what is spawned by the X server (/usr/bin/X)on display 0:0 , (-:0). That is where your system seems to be stopping. What comes after these lines will be indicative of the problem. There is a reasonable chance that you can fix the problem with

"sudo aptitude reinstall kdelibs-bin x11-common"

This will reinstall current version of these packages, one or more of which may have failed to install completely.

[BSAB_80]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

Tried to reinstall kdelibs, still the same black screen.
The syslog had this, I assume they are of interest:

kdm_greet [5820]: cannot open default user face
consolekit-daemon [5411]: WARNING: unable to activate console: no such device or address


In addition, ~/.xsession-errors had this:

X-window-manager: fatal IO error: client killed
QObject: do not delete object 'unnamed' during its event handler
Klauncher: exiting on signal 15
Knotify: fatal IO error: client killed
XIO: fatal IO error 104

[flarson]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

I think your console-kit-daemon line is indicative of the problem. They have been having problems with this and it was updated Feb. 11
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18330
It is used to track user sessions and has optional priority. It is on my system and working in version 0.2.10-1ubuntu10. It is optionally tied to libpam-ck-connector.

If you have a version less than 0.2.10-1ubuntu10 you should upgrade it. If that doesn't work uninstall it.

So try
"dpkg -l | grep console"
"dpkg -l | grep pam"

you will see if these packages are installed and what versions.

To update use "sudo aptitude -f full-upgrade" and you will get a complete upgrade. You might need "sudo aptitude update" if your system does not do this itself.

To remove consolekit you would use "sudo aptitude uninstall consolekit".

Good Luck.

[BSAB_80]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

No dice. Updated everything, removed consolefix and still nothing.

Xsession-errors doesn't look so critical now, though, except for a few lines:

Unable to open file '/usr/share/apps/kxkb/ubuntu.xmodmap for reading
Could not access kephald, falling back to QDesktopWidget
Kdeinit4: preparing to launch /usr/bin/knotify4
<unknown program name>:communication problem with 'knotify', it probably crashed
Error message was: 'org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply'

And seriously, thanks for all the help provided so far, you're a star!

[flarson]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

Appreciation is always appreciated. Looking at the messages you are seeing now makes me think that your upgrade was interrupted and your system thinks it has packages installed that are not installed, or partially installed. In particular I think kdebase-workspace is involved. On my system

dpkg --get-selections | grep workspace
shows
kdebase-workspace-bin install
kdebase-workspace-data install
kdebase-workspace-libs4+5 install

Do you have each of these installed?

It couldn't hurt and might help to do
sudo aptitude reinstall kdebase-workspace-bin kdebase-workspace-data kdebase-workspace-libs4+5

just to insure that they are installed properly.

[BSAB_80]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

Yeah, that might be it, -bin and -data are "deinstall".

I'll try to do an install as soon as I get my mate's Ethernet cable and router again, I have no clue how to access my wireless network from the command prompt.

[BSAB_80]

Re: Black screen after log-in - help!

It worked!
Installed those packages and now it's all good!
Cheers for everything!