I recently did a nondescript update of software in 16.10 (not an upgrade, have had 16.10 working fine for quite some time now). It asked to reboot, and so I did. After rebooting, it showed a low-res login screen (I had configured my system to not ask for login). I use a wireless keyboard, and have no wired keyboard as an option. The computer does not respond to input from the wireless keyboard, even though it did before the reboot. I can use the on-screen keyboard (my wireless mouse still works fine, oddly enough), but the keyboard won’t allow me to do a
Ctrl-Alt-F3
. If I try to log into the system, it just kicks me back to the login page. Same if I try to start a guest session.So, in summary:
- I am stuck in the login page loop
- My keyboard is unresponsive
- The onscreen keyboard won’t let me open the command prompt.
Because this update was a normal, every-day update, I did not take any backups, as I would before performing an upgrade. Because of this, I am loathe to do a reinstall of the OS, as there is data that I would lose in that process. However, I have no idea what other options I have.
I am not 100% sure what was updated that caused this issue, but I do remember that it was a kernel upgrade (again, fairly nondescript, goes through all the time without any problem whatsoever – except for this time, apparently). I do not know to which version the kernel was upgraded, but I was prompted for it yesterday morning (3/28), so presumably a version that was new in that time frame.
I should also note that some time ago, while doing another normal-looking update, it said there was an issue and needed to do a “partial upgrade”, which seemed odd for it being a run-of-the-mill update, not an upgrade.
Answer
So after some experimentation, here was what finally worked for me:
- Create a Live USB
- Change the USB port in which the receiver for my wireless keyboard rested (front ports not operable apparently, but back worked fine, which was why my mouse worked)
- Boot to the Live USB (mine was for 16.10). Did this by using
F11
to get to the boot menu and boot from the USB drive. Booting the normal OS into recovery mode did not work and did not help. - By accessing drives as admin (I did it in the terminal with
sudo -i
), I was able to copy and preserve the files I needed backed up - Then, wiped the entire OS drive and re-installed the OS. I tried just doing a “repair packages” and even a “reinstall Ubuntu”, but neither worked. Somehow I had borked the system badly enough that I had to wipe the drive.
- After the install was complete, I could boot into my system, restore the files I had backed up, and everything was back to normal.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : cidthecoatrack , Answer Author : cidthecoatrack