Hi Brian,

My 2¢.

If my OS was that hosed, I would just start over. There is a point where the rabbit hole gets too deep to climb out of.

Have you looked at the hard drive to see if that HDD/SSD is failing?

sudo apt install smartmontools
sudo smartctl --all /dev/sda

If you have never looked at SMART data, then you will want to probably send us/me the output. You will probably be better off doing this from a live USB/CD. If you want a GUI for smartmontools, look at GSmartControl.

If the drive is failing, then fixing the OS is a moot point.

Regards,

Jared

On 4/22/19 9:45 PM, Brian O'Keefe wrote:

Thanks Harold. Responses inserted for ease and clarity. Many thanks again

On 4/22/19 9:23 PM, Harold Furbiter wrote:
Here is a receipe for boot from an older kernel, and how to set it to a default.
 

If you have a few Kernels in your system you can set manually what Kernel version will start:

  1. Reboot your PC with pressed Shift button for display GRUB after BIOS will start. You will see something like: GRUB start page

I have booted into older kernels or safe mode this way in the pas. Now I cannot reboot as all that comes up is the them color screen, no login, nothing. So I have to do a hard shutdown. I do not get a Grub menu holding down shift key upon starting. I get a flat theme color screen. Nothing more

  1. Select "Advanced options for Ubuntu" and memorize index of this menu line(count starts from 0) On the picture index is 1

Since I can't access Grub menu I can't do any of the following except edit grub setup file, which I have not done because of above issue

      2.      Select concrete Kernel

  1. Select concrete kernel for boot and also memorize index of this menu line(count starts from 0) On the picture index of chosen Kernel is 2

  2. Start system. This action is for one boot on concrete kernel. If you want to start from concrete Kernel all time you should do next steps:

4.1. Open and edit GRUB setup file:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

4.2. Find line GRUB_DEFAULT=...(by default GRUB_DEFAULT=0) and sets in quotes menu path to concrete Kernel(Remember menu indexes from steps 2 and 3). In my system first index was 1 and second was 2. I set in to GRUB_DEFAULT

GRUB_DEFAULT="1>2"

Save file.

4.3. Update GRUB information for apply changes:

sudo update-grub

4.4. After reboot you automatically boot on Kernel by chosen menu path. An example on my machine 1 -> 2

4.5. Check Kernel version after reboot:

uname -r

 
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2019 at 10:54 PM
From: "Brian O'Keefe" <okeefe@cybermesa.com>
To: nmglug@lists.nmglug.org
Subject: Re: [nmglug] Weirdness

Thanks again,

Tried them all to no avail

On 4/15/19 6:33 PM, Harold Furbiter wrote:
You could try:
sudo /sbin/init 6   (see if it reboots)
reboots to a blank, colored screen, no log in
sudo /sbin/init 1   (see if it give you a prompt)
Gives me a rescue mode prompt that I cannot use as I can't enter any of the options
 
maybe su to root and try init
sudo su - root  (you need '- root' to insure your path is root's)
 
you might try booting from a older or oldest kernel:
Can't access the grub menu for older kernels. Using shift key during boot just gives me the blank colored screen
 
dpkg -l | grep linux-image | awk '{print$2}'
 
Gives you a list of bootable kernels available on your system. Try booting from the oldest version.
Is there a way to reboot from a terminal with an older kernel as I cannot access the grub menu. this is a recent issue, within the last couple of weeks.
 
Cheers,
 
Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2019 at 8:32 AM
From: "Harold Furbiter" <wwcorigan@mail.com>
To: nmglug@lists.nmglug.org
Subject: Re: [nmglug] Weirdness
Then you have a corrupt kernel. On boot try booting to an older kernel.
 
 
 
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2019 at 6:15 PM
From: "Brian O'Keefe" <okeefe@cybermesa.com>
To: nmglug@lists.nmglug.org
Subject: Re: [nmglug] Weirdness

Thanks for the input Harold,

Same result, just hangs on the splash screen. Can't logout, esc. key does nothing, can't switch to a console. Just have to do a hard shutdown.

On 4/11/19 8:59 PM, Harold Furbiter wrote:
Out of curiousity have you tried init 0 ?
 
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 at 11:26 AM
From: "Brian O'Keefe" <okeefe@cybermesa.com>
To: "NMGLUG.org mailing list" <nmglug@nmglug.org>
Subject: [nmglug] Weirdness

Hi All,

Since I may not make meeting (niece visiting and Thurs. is her last day) I'm putting my issue out for comment and hopefully answers. As many of you know I used to updgrade instead of clean installs and did that since Ubuntu 6.04. I had also added many apps from third parties and also modified many, many conf files to keep things working. I had a meltdown and lost much of my data but following a partial recovery, thanks to a certain group member, I installed a clean version of 18.04 onto a new 1TB SSD. I have ot tinkered at all with 3rd party software nor modified any conf files or been a bad boy in any way!

My issue ids that I cannot shut down my box in anyway other than a hard shutdown. I also cannot restart it. I have tried the GUI option as well as switching to text mode and using "sudo shutdown now" or "sudo restart now". In those cases I get the splash screen with the "traveling lights" and Unutu but it hangs there. The traveling dots hang on the first dot of the splash screen and nothing happens. I had hoped that text mode would give give me an indication of the issues but I can't stay in that mode for some reason. 

Thanks for any help.

Brian

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