GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Questions about applications and software
Forum rules
Before you post read how to get help. Topics in this forum are automatically closed 6 months after creation.
Locked
PatMcTookis

GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by PatMcTookis »

Right so here's my situation. I use mint on my desktop because Ubuntu doesn't come with the proprietary nvidia drivers to use my graphics card. I was using mint on my laptop as well but I thought GNOME3 looked interesting to I installed Ubuntu GNOME on my laptop. I don't care what the haters say, I love GNOME 3. I think it's awesome so I decided to try and use it on my desktop which is running Mint 15 Cinnamon. I opened up a terminal and ran:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell gnome-shell-extensions gnome-tweak-tool
Seems like everything installed fine. So I logout, select GNOME for my shell and login. But when I login all I get is my cursor on a black screen.

I have no idea what to do.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
User avatar
xenopeek
Level 25
Level 25
Posts: 29507
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 3:58 am

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by xenopeek »

IIRC, it was Linux Mint 16 that came with the Cinnamon version that has full separation from Gnome Shell -- avoiding problems when installing both on the same installation. Not sure if Linux Mint 15 Cinnamon will "play nice" with Gnome Shell without first removing Cinnamon.

Note also that Linux Mint 15 has reached end of life in January this year. You shouldn't use Linux Mint 15 for anything serious (like online banking) as because support has ended it's been at least 6 months since the last security update you received. Especially your browser shouldn't be used for anything serious on the Internet. Please upgrade to Linux Mint 17 as soon as possible. In any case, Linux Mint 15 would give you a very old version of Gnome Shell :| (3.6 vs 3.10 that is available on Linux Mint 17)

If you want to install Linux Mint then install Gnome Shell and remove the desktop environment that came with Linux Mint, I'd suggest to use Linux Mint 17 Xfce. Xfce is the easiest desktop environment to fully remove.

Disregard the Gnome Shell haters; it's the most popular desktop environment these days with Linux enthusiasts (if you haven't seen it, scroll to "What is your favorite Linux GUI?" in the Results of the 2014 /r/Linux Distribution Survey.)
Image
PatMcTookis

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by PatMcTookis »

Thanks for the reply. I actually made a typo in that post. I'm currently running LM 17 on my desktop with cinnamon. Thanks for your informative post though! I will try re-installing with XFCE and see if that helps. Is it necesary to remove XFCE after installing Gnome? If so, How do I go about uninstalling XFCE? Do I just purge it like any other application?
User avatar
xenopeek
Level 25
Level 25
Posts: 29507
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 3:58 am

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by xenopeek »

No, if you have Linux Mint 17 that shouldn't be the problem. Cinnamon can coexists with Gnome Shell in that release. It must be something else.

My next recommendation would be:
1. Create a new user account
2. Log out, and log in with the new user account to Gnome Shell

I think perhaps something on your current user account (user preferences or settings) might be causing issues. I always test new desktop environments on a new user account.
Image
PatMcTookis

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by PatMcTookis »

xenopeek wrote:No, if you have Linux Mint 17 that shouldn't be the problem. Cinnamon can coexists with Gnome Shell in that release. It must be something else.

My next recommendation would be:
1. Create a new user account
2. Log out, and log in with the new user account to Gnome Shell

I think perhaps something on your current user account (user preferences or settings) might be causing issues. I always test new desktop environments on a new user account.
OK, I didn't do the re-install. I did try using Gnome with a new user but I got the same result. :?
PatMcTookis

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by PatMcTookis »

gnome-shell, gnome-shell-extensions, gnome-tweak-tool... Is there a package missing? Something else I should install?
User avatar
xenopeek
Level 25
Level 25
Posts: 29507
Joined: Wed Jul 06, 2011 3:58 am

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by xenopeek »

Yes, you need at least also gnome-session. I'd recommend also gnome-user-guide and gnome-control-center. gnome-shell and other packages you installed all only have gnome-session as a recommended or suggested package, which aren't installed by default. Hence you need to at least explicitly install that.

I looked at the Gnome packages in Ubuntu: http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/gnome/.
Image
samlowry

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by samlowry »

Hi, PatMcTookis,
I'm with you - used to love Gnome3. I experiencd one of the best work flows ever with it when it came out. Wanted to give it a shot again, just out of curiosity. Ended up with the same problem like you yesterday.
I had a clean, fresh install of Mint 17, Cinnamon. I had already created a separate user for this experment too (this was recommended above). Was using proprietary Nvidia v331 drivers (cannot use Nouveau - this will cause resume from suspend freezing problems for me whenever compiz is in use, also on Ubuntu 14.04). Using an Asus A43SM.
Did you figure it out? It seems to me I had all the packages recommended above nicely installed. I ended up checking out /var/log/apt/history.log and removed everything that got installed when I installed gnome-shell. If you are interested I can share the list of the whole lot that was downloaded so one can easily use it with apt-get remove. Or - if you figure it out, post your solution, please. :)
djahma

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by djahma »

Same as you guys, I still can't manage to launch a gnome shell session after all these tricks + more found online :mrgreen: . However, ".xsession-errors" gives interesting info:

Code: Select all

mdm[21790]: DEBUG: Forking extra process: /etc/mdm/PreSession/Default
mdm[21790]: DEBUG: Warning, session Exec line did not contain quotes: gnome-session --session=gnome
mdm[21790]: DEBUG: Running /etc/mdm/Xsession "gnome-session --session=gnome" for gman on :0
/etc/mdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
localuser:gman being added to access control list
Script for none started at run_im.
Script for auto started at run_im.
Script for default started at run_im.
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
init: Failed to obtain gnome-session instance: Unknown parameter: XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP
The last line about that unknown variable has lead me towards the /usr/share/xsessions folder in search for something wrong in the desktop files...and that's where I'm stuck.
Another possibility could be the need for an mdm specific variable in the desktop file for gnome, but I've had enough logouts+reboots for one night :shock:
djahma

Re: GNOME3 - black screen after login, help?

Post by djahma »

more on this issue, apparently mdm is not a good friend of gnome, so I installed lightdm and tried again. Here is .xsessions-errors output:

Code: Select all

Script for none started at run_im.
Script for auto started at run_im.
Script for default started at run_im.
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd main process ended, respawning
init: at-spi2-registryd respawning too fast, stopped
here is an extract of /var/log/syslog:

Code: Select all

Oct 27 11:00:36 ThinkPad dbus[493]: [system] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.systemd1' (using servicehelper)
Oct 27 11:00:36 ThinkPad gnome-session[6843]: WARNING: Could not parse desktop file onboard-autostart.desktop or it references a not found TryExec binary
Oct 27 11:00:36 ThinkPad dbus[493]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1'
Oct 27 11:00:36 ThinkPad gnome-session[6843]: WARNING: Could not parse desktop file xfdashboard-autostart.desktop or it references a not found TryExec binary
Oct 27 11:00:36 ThinkPad colord: Device added: xrandr-eDP1
Oct 27 11:00:36 ThinkPad dbus[493]: [system] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.locale1' (using servicehelper)
Oct 27 11:00:36 ThinkPad dbus[493]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.locale1'
Oct 27 11:00:37 ThinkPad colord: Automatic metadata add icc-62e75c388725e8e9e4c7e24ab39107e2 to xrandr-eDP1
Oct 27 11:00:37 ThinkPad colord: Profile added: icc-62e75c388725e8e9e4c7e24ab39107e2
Oct 27 11:00:37 ThinkPad gnome-session[6843]: WARNING: App 'gnome-shell.desktop' exited with code 127
Oct 27 11:00:37 ThinkPad gnome-session[6843]: WARNING: App 'gnome-shell.desktop' exited with code 127
Oct 27 11:00:37 ThinkPad gnome-session[6843]: WARNING: App 'gnome-shell.desktop' respawning too quickly
Oct 27 11:00:37 ThinkPad gnome-session[6843]: CRITICAL: We failed, but the fail whale is dead. Sorry....
I don't understand what's happening, so I've tried with gdm instead of lightdm. This time, I couldn't even reach the login screen, and looking into these log, the same "respawning" errors occurred. So now, I believe my gnome/gtk3 packages are messed up to cause these issues. I deleted the gnome3 ppa I had tried, purged many packages then reinstalled gnome-shell to no avail.
Any idea how to tackle these gnome issues anyone?
cheers
Locked

Return to “Software & Applications”