18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

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Arp
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18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

Post by Arp »

Hello,

I installed 18.3 yesterday and noticed something really bad. When I install mint, I like to use the encryption tool that the installer provides. It will then encrypt the drive using LVM. When you boot, you are immediatly asked for a password. And here is the problem. I can not enter it. If I press buttons, nothing happens. By chance I noticed, when looking through other "screens" using ALT + Fx, that there was one instance where the password I entered was visible in plain text, as if the keyboard focus was not on the entry field.

I found, that if I boot using safe? mode, I end up in a text based entry field and I can input the password without a problem ... but that sucks.

Any ideas? Is this again a graphics (NVIDIA) issue?
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.
WharfRat

Re: 18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

Post by WharfRat »

I did an encrypted installation on a laptop several years ago and as I remember entering your password is similar to entering your sudo password, i.e., no characters are echoed back on the screen.
Arp
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Re: 18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

Post by Arp »

I know this situation from 17.3. There, depending on the kernel and or graphics driver, sometimes the screen simply stays black, but you can actually type it in and it will work.

I have 18.2 on a Laptop, and there you see the keyboard feedback. But as I wrote, with ALT+F6 or so you get into a screen where the password you just entered is shown in clear text. That does not sound right to me.
WharfRat

Re: 18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

Post by WharfRat »

Arp wrote:I know this situation from 17.3. There, depending on the kernel and or graphics driver, sometimes the screen simply stays black, but you can actually type it in and it will work.

I have 18.2 on a Laptop, and there you see the keyboard feedback. But as I wrote, with ALT+F6 or so you get into a screen where the password you just entered is shown in clear text. That does not sound right to me.
Sorry, it was very early in the morning for me and your topic was the first I read while the coffee was brewing.

What I now understand that the password shows in plain text on another virtual terminal is indeed strange.

I cannot take this any further though as I don't have an encrypted system here to try and duplicate your experience.

Hopefully someone else here with an encrypted setup will give this a try.
FT277002
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Re: 18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

Post by FT277002 »

I have the exact same problem after installing with encryption, but doubt it is a hardware issue...
In my case:
If you press ctrl+alt+del, system will reboot to the Grub selection menu. If you choose the Kernel in recovery mode, you get to enter the PW and it works fine.
FT277002
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More Re: 18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

Post by FT277002 »

I reinstalled LM 18.2 cinnamon a few days ago, looking resolve some problems that were self-inflicted. This time around I selected the installation option to encrypt the drive, which probably wasn't that necessary, but one of the reasons I decided to try Linux is that it is more secure.
Anyhow, now upon boot, this comes up:
boot.gif
Now I know the PW, can enter it, but LM is stuck here- you can't enter anything in the box.

The only option is to do a recovery boot, and when I do that, this comes up after selecting to boot LM normally:
recovery.gif
Here, finally it allows for entering the encryption PW and boots fine, and LM works normally.

I have tried going into the disks utility
disks.gif
And tried editing the encryption options, so it will unlock itself, but no luck so far. In fact, turning off the option to unlock at startup just gave me a blank screen.
WharfRat

Re: 18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

Post by WharfRat »

Do you know how to mount the encrypted lvm from the installation media to make a change to grub.cfg :?:

Or can you get into recovery and use nano to edit grub.cfg :?:

If so replace everything beyond ro to debug=vt.

In this case, on my old encrypted system, it stayed in a text terminal for the encrypted disk's password.

This might help with narrowing the problem to the graphical login screen and provide normal access.
Arp
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Re: 18.3 - Unable to decrypt at boot

Post by Arp »

WharfRat wrote:If so replace everything beyond ro to debug=vt.
Thanks. That indeed always leads to a text based password entry.
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