Mint 17 MATE - not starting X successfully automatically

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It started happening earlier this week when I was still running 16. I took the opportunity to upgrade to 17 via the command line, and that didn't solve it. So I did a fresh install of 17.

The very first time it booted, it took about five minutes to start X - the 'failed to start five times, waiting two minutes to try again' popup message happened twice. Since then, it's worked for a couple of restarts.

Until this morning. Today, it gets to the splash screen and no further. If I use nosplash, typically it gets to

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Starting NETBios name server

and stops there.

If I open a terminal and type

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startx

it will do it (this is what I am using now...)

If I look now at the main screen and use F2 to see the messages, it's got past the NETBios line, started CUPS, started and stopped Samba, and stopped logging the boot. There are two earlier lines about starting the MDM display manager.

It will happily finish booting into LMDE MATE and Window 7, and a bootchart will be below (in two parts because of its height).

Note that this PC needs nomodeset with Linux or it will crash to a reboot a few seconds after getting to the desktop - this is a known issue upstream.

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I have seen http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=169464 and http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=169505 - these both seem to describe the same issue I'm having but the first mdm update hasn't cured it here. It looks like there's been another one, so let's try..

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$ dpkg -l mdm
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name           Version      Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
ii  mdm            1.6.9        i386         MDM Display Manager

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Nope, still no good.

Installing and using lightdm gets me to the desktop on time, so I am sticking with that one.

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It started happening earlier this week when I was still running 16.

I should say that this week was the first time I have needed to reboot in months, and it was only because of needing to swap a UPS that meant I did so.

The problem with mdm / some other package may well have happened much before then.

[boblynn]

Hello "unprinted"

I had to actually remove Lightdm AND mdm THEN install mdm before it would work. Note: a simple Reinstall did NOT work.

So it would seem some "update/bug fix" to LM16 actually broke something else and caused our problem. Interesting that it only effected a small precentage of systems. Wonder what we all have in common?

[siNner]

Hello,

I saw your post in "my" thread.

Unfortunately I'm not as good in techy Linux knowledge to help you out. I've seen that you are far more aware of Linux than me.

Just posting so you know it is not my unwilling mind to help you, but I really don't know what was the cause of the problem...

Cheers!

[unprinted]

Hello "unprinted"

I had to actually remove Lightdm AND mdm THEN install mdm before it would work. Note: a simple Reinstall did NOT work.

So it would seem some "update/bug fix" to LM16 actually broke something else and caused our problem. Interesting that it only effected a small precentage of systems. Wonder what we all have in common?

Certainly if you leave Lightdm around while trying to use MDM, something isn't happy - the boot text reckons it tried starting Lightdm even after I had removed Lightdm. Purging stopped that, and I needed to reinstall MDM anyway, but nope.

It's an AMD A8-based system here, so one of their APUs with decent graphics on the chip. I do need to use nomodeset or it crashes to a reboot a few seconds after reaching the desktop (if it does!)

Currently, I've gone for removing MDM and just sticking with Lightdm (if you keep both, user switching doesn't work without some work, because MATE only looks for alternative ways of doing it if it can't find the MDM file to do it...)

[boblynn]

Interesting. It must be hardware specific. This pc is an old AMD Anthlon XP 2400+ with S3 graphic chip VT8375 [Pro Savage KM266/KL266].

Lightdm worked for me after that update/bug fix (17 June) but I wanted to use mdm and had to completely remove and then install mdm after uninstalling Lightdm. That was the only way I could get mdm to work.

I didn't need to keep the nomodeset parameter because proper graphic drivers (S3 & SavagePro) were included in the LM17 release and were automatically selected.

What graphic chip-set do you have? (Open a terminal and type in the following:)

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inxi -CGx

I noticed a new/updated version of mdm was released recently maybe that one would work for your system.

Anyway, if you are happy with Lightdm and everything is working fine for you, then enjoy!
Cheers

[unprinted]

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$ inxi -CGx
CPU:       Quad core AMD A8-5500 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (-MCP-) cache: 8192 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm) bmips: 25601.6 
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1400.00 MHz 2: 1400.00 MHz 3: 1400.00 MHz 4: 1400.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Trinity [Radeon HD 7560D] bus-ID: 00:01.0 
           X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: ati,fglrx (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,radeon) Resolution: 1920x1080@60.0hz 
           GLX Renderer: AMD Radeon HD 7560D GLX Version: 4.3.12798 - CPC 13.35.1005 Direct Rendering: Yes

.. so it's using the AMD binary driver.

I could not care less about what the login looks like - it gets seen for about five seconds every few months!

What does annoy me is that

a) MATE will only work properly with one (LightDM) if the one it is supplied with (MDM) is removed and that using dpkg-configure to select one doesn't work as it should.

b) The supplied one isn't working for me and some others.

[boblynn]

I see your system uses the AMD Radeon graphic chip. My daily pc uses an old Pentium 4 with an older AMD Radeon 7000 graphic chip. I have to use the "nomodeset" boot parameter also (at least on LM 13 that it is running).

Ubuntu (on which Linux Mint is based) has long had driver problems handling Raedon graphic chips. Maybe mdm does also. Unfortunately, major changes/updates from LM 16 to LM 17 introduced a lot of new bugs on many systems like ours. Hopefully, they will be indentified and resolved over time before I upgrade my daily pc from LM 13 to LM 17 when support ends in two more years.

Anyway thanks for satisfying my curiosity on your system's graphic card.

Glad to know that Lightdm works for you and your systems is finally running LM 17 sucessfully.

Cheers!

[clutch]

Hi guys, just an FYI

Issue: Had the same issue after some regular updates via the Update Manager. The startup process halts at "Srtarting NetBIOS name server"
Video: I am with nVidia 560ti
Fix: Issue fixed by reinstalling mdm via terminal invoked during boot.

Cheers