Home / ubuntu / Questions / 1029604
Accepted
orestis
Asked: 2018-04-30 01:13:01 +0800 CST

Ubuntu 18.04 Gnome hangs on login screen

  • 772

After a new Ubuntu 18.04 installation on a empty drive, when I try to log in the computer freezes. When I log in through tty ( Ctrl+Alt+F2,F3), I can log in normally and perform tasks.

How can I debug what is happening with GNOME?

Also, when I try to shut it down, I get the error: 

NMI watchdog: Watchdog detected hard LOCKUP on cpu 4

I have a Dell XPS 15 with NVMe drive. 

$ uname -a
Linux kefalonia 4.15.0-20-generic #21-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 24 06:16:15 UTC 2018 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ lshw -C cpu
  *-cpu
       description: CPU
       product: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz
       vendor: Intel Corp.
       physical id: 4c
       bus info: cpu@0
       version: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz
       serial: To Be Filled By O.E.M.
       slot: U3E1
       size: 3709MHz
       capacity: 3800MHz
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 100MHz
       capabilities: x86-64 fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf tsc_known_freq pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb invpcid_single pti tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt intel_pt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp cpufreq
       configuration: cores=4 enabledcores=4 threads=8
login xps 18.04

5 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Same issue. Even though Ubuntu was released last week, you can not use 18.04 on Dell XPS directly. I installed in several ways but each time laptop freezes as soon as I enter password on login prompt.

    I got it working by pressig Ctrl-Alt-F2 at the login prompt and then:

    sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nvidia-390

    And restart the laptop

    • 10

  2. I had same problem on a Dell XPS. After several installations and downloaded the Nvidia drivers the issue continued, so I disabled the Secure boot option in the BIOS and that worked for me I could pass the login screen. Everything seems fine although I don't have the gear icon in the login screen anymore, I had the Ubuntu and Ubuntu in Wayland options before disabling the secure boot. I just need to fix the grub for the dual boot with the efi partition.

    • 2

  3. What worked for me

    sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall
    • 1

  4. I found a way to fix it.

    Step 1:After the installation was complete I still had to hard reset my laptop.

    Step 2: For some strange reason the F1-F12 keys were locked to their alternate functions (i.e. sound control etc.). So before any attempt to login I went to a virtual tty by using the buttons Ctrl + Fn + F2.

    Step 2: I run dpkg-reconfigure ubuntu-desktop. I do not think this does actually anything but it allowed another laptop to login.

    Step 3 (Alternative below): I edited the /etc/default/grub file and added in the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT field the value nomodeset. The final value of the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT was nomodeset quiet splash.

    Step 4: I run sudo update-grub

    Step 5: Restart and if necessary hard-restart

    Step 6: I managed to login and I installed the nvidia drivers using the "Software and Updates" application (Tab "Additional Drivers").

    Step 7: I removed the nomodeset from /etc/default/grub and run update-grub again.

    Alternative to step 3: As the computer is booting you can enable the grub menu to appear by pressing Shift. Then you can press e and add the option nomodeset next to quiet splash. Then (theoretically) you will be able to log in and install the drivers and you will not have to edit the grub and update the grub at all. My problem is that I could not make the grub menu to appear, so I followed the method described above.

    Note:

    While you are editing the grub file you can comment out the lines
    GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true so that the grub menu will be always easily available. But that is not necessary.

    Update March 2020: In another laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad p53 with Quadro T2000 hybrid graphics) the drivers in the ppa or the drivers available through Ubuntu were not helpful. Downloading the drivers from Nvidia and installing them manually did the job. Strangely enough the have put a pre-install phase which presumably is supposed to fail every time. I chose to ignore the warning that the pre-install phase failed and continued to the installation. After that everything works fine (at least in discrete graphics mode).

    • 0

  5. Run:

    sudo apt-get install gdm3

    and

    sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3

    This worked for me in Ubuntu 18.04 as well as Pop! Os 18.04...

    • 0