Restart Function Stopped Working in Linux Mint 18 - Even Though No Changes Were Made to System

[frank84]

SUMMARY
The restart function was working fine after a fresh installation of Linux Mint 18 64-bit Mate and a few basic updates. I verified this multiple times. Then, even though I made no additional changes to the system, the computer can no longer restart. It freezes up every time I attempt to restart. (Toshiba Satellite P205D-S7454 Laptop)

WHAT I HAVE DONE SO FAR
After discovering the problem about 6 hours after the initial installation, I went back in time to a Timeshift snapshot at which time I was even more positive that restart was working OK -- and the computer would still not restart normally with that snapshot.

I am new to Linux but have tried and failed (due to restart and shutdown problems) attempting a variety of Linux Mint installations and read a lot (and been overwhelmed) about the multitude of problems and potential solutions other people have tried for computers that would not restart or shutdown. But since I am not aware of any changes I made to the system that could have caused the restart function to STOP working, I don't know how I can undo whatever caused the problem AND keep it from happening again. So I would appreciate your help in solving this problem.

After weeks of research and troubleshooting, I previously got LM 17.3 Cinnamon to work but I believe it loses support in April so I would like to use a distro that will be supported longer than that. I installed LM18 because I read that both 17.3 and 18 use kernel 4.4 and therefore 18 should also work with my hardware.


WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I TRY TO RESTART:
The desktop disappears, the Mint logo flashes by and I hear a sound (not a beep) from the computer. Then it seems to be starting to boot up but it freezes. It counts up the amount of RAM it finds and displays lines of text about

copyright Phoenix, etc. and a little further down:
RAM Passed, Cache,
System BIOS Shadowed and
Video BIOS shadowed,
ATAPI CD-ROM: Pioneer,
Fixed Disk 0: SATA SSD and
Mouse initialized.

The screen also lists F2 and F12 keys at the bottom, but those keys don't work since it started freezing. After a minute and 15 seconds, F2 and F12 disappear and two new lines appear in the list above. They include:

kernel Library version: 03.05.00.03 and
StrongROM version : 03.30 Build P.
But still, it does not restart.

And after waiting a really long time for restart to complete, some other text appears:

Intel UNDI , PXE 2.1 (build 082),
Copyright Intel . . . then lower down,

For Realtech . . . Fast Ethernet Network Adapter
PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE -M0F: Exiting PXE ROM and
a blinking cursor below at the left edge.

But in all cases, the only thing I can do to move on is hold the power button down for about 5 seconds to kill it. Startup from there and shutdown work normally.

** Could any of the gibberish (that is what it is to me) I listed above, that is displayed on the screen when it freezes during restart mean that something like plugging in or unplugging an Ethernet cable earlier in the day could be causing the restart to fail?

MY COMPUTER SPECIFICATIONS

Toshiba Satellite P205D-S7454 Laptop
(came with Windows Vista)

* AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-58
+ 1.9 GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, HyperTransport™ Technology @ up to 800MHz
+ AMD M690V chipset

* 2048MB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM

* ATI Radeon® Xpress X1200M 128MB-319MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory

* 128 GB SSD

I checked the BIOS version and I have the latest for my machine even though it is many years old

[Mute Ant]

"...PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable ..." Your motherboard is trying to load boot code from the ethernet port, and failing. Mint can't affect this, it's a setting in the BIOS screens where you enable/disable PXE boot.

[frank84]

Thanks for your reply Mute Ant. Unfortunately, after going into and reviewing all the tabs/pages of Phoenix BIOS Setup Utility, I could not find any mention of "PXE". On the boot tab/page of the BIOS Setup Utility, I double-checked and verified that HDD SATA SSD -(S1) is the first item listed: that is where my LM 18 installation is located . The last item listed was LAN. In response to your comment, I disabled LAN and tried restarting twice. But, unfortunately, it did not help. The computer still freezes every time during restart.

In case it might help for any further suggestions, I will highlight the fact that I did not make any changes to the BIOS (that I am aware of) between the time the computer was restarting perfectly and when the restart function went haywire. I'll also note that the computer still does a shutdown perfectly and boots up just fine after a shutdown.

I would appreciate any additional help that can be provided. Thanks!

[michael louwe]

.

.
To solve screen-freezing problems for AMD/Nvidia graphics cards ... viewtopic.php?f=46&t=122257
https://linuxmint.com/rel_sonya_cinnamon.php

[frank84]

Thanks for your reply Michael. I tried adding nomodeset xforcevesa to the GRUB menu as suggested in the links, however, unfortunately, it did not help. I also got a fleeting error message after exiting GRUB -- too fleeting to see and remember it.

As far as I can tell those procedures are for a one-time boot up from power off, not for a restart. I checked the GRUB menu after shutting down the power and booting up and noticed that my changes were already deleted, as I suspected. For modifications to potentially help during restarts both now and in the future, I believe any helpful modifications would have to be saved in such a way that they will survive during future restarts.

I also re-checked with driver update again and I do already have the AMD opensource driver microcode installed. My graphics specs are: ATI Radeon® Xpress X1200M 128MB-319MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory . I didn't see any references to ATI in the instructions.

Please let me know if it appears that I missed anything. Thanks for you input. Any additional suggestions would be very welcome.

[michael louwe]

@ frank84, .......

.

.
To make an edit to the kernel boot parameter to persist through reboots, please refer to ... https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/KernelBootParameters
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

You need to do further research into how-to install AMD's proprietary graphics cards drivers, eg the fglrx and Catalyst drivers. In this respect, Nvidia gives better support to Linux for her proprietary graphics cards drivers.
....... I think it is big-headed and foolish of AMD to ignore the small Linux market.

Also, be aware that old computers are generally more compatible with old Linux kernels, ie your Win Vista era computer should run better on kernel 3.13LTS. In due time, LM 20 or LM 21 may no longer has driver support for your old computer = need to buy a new computer.

[frank84]

Michael, Thank you very much for your reply and advice.

In response to your suggestions, I reviewed this page
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/AMD
to learn about "the proprietary fglrx driver (known as AMD Catalyst or AMD Radeon Software)". It said that "For Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and above, the AMD Catalyst or fglrx driver is no longer supported by AMD, or in Ubuntu". So since LM18 uses Ubuntu 16.04, I assume that means I should forget about using the glrx/AMD Catalyst driver.

Nonetheless, I kept trying and also followed a link
https://support.amd.com/en-us/download
from that page to check "whether your AMD graphics card is supported" but, unfortunately, I could not find anything like "ATI Radeon® Xpress X1200M" for which to download any drivers.

So I assume that both these web pages are indicating that there are no proprietary drivers available that would work for my computer on LM 18.

On that initial web page, I also found a statement indicating "older AMD GPUs should use Radeon. For details on which GPUs require Radeon, please see the Radeon driver homepage"
https://www.x.org/wiki/radeon/
But I couldn't find anything like "ATI Radeon® Xpress X1200M" by following links from there.

I don't even know if any of this stuff comes close to relating to my machine or not as I don't have a stand-alone graphics card and the text on these web pages is ambiguous as to whether they are talking about integrated graphics or stand-alone graphics cards.

**I can download the original "ATI Display Driver for Windows Vista" made for this laptop, but I assume that would not be Linux compatible -- am I correct in that assumption?**

I also want to thank you for the excellent web pages you recommended for editing boot parameters. I tried the two parameters that I believe are considered most likely to solve a restart problem: restart=bios and restart=pci . Unfortunately, they did not help. I also tried modifying many other boot (restart=) parameters, one by one, some weeks ago (during earlier failures to install a stable LM) but none of the modifications helped solve restart problems. Since I very much appreciate your attempts to help, I might try all of them again, but I have spent so much time on this with no success that I have grown quite weary.

CAN THIS PUZZLE BE SOLVED?
Michael, please do not take the words below as a lack of respect or any kind of argument about your very much appreciated suggestions. I would appreciate any opinion you or other readers have on these issues that seem very puzzling to me:

I can't help but continue to focus on the fact that my LM 18 installation was working perfectly fine without making any special modifications (e.g., additional drivers or boot parameter modifications) and wonder why restart just stopped working for no apparent reason. My laptop was running LM18 smoothly and it ran with good speed: there were no indications of any lack of resources or compatibility problems. Then, a little later, on my first recent attempt at installing and gradually updating LM18, restart went bad during a time when I made no changes to the system. On my second try, restart failed only after installing some level 3 updates.

And I am even more baffled about why, after restoring Timeshift snapshots from times when all was working perfectly, the snapshots now fail to restart.
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=273809&sid=63e2346 ... 056b5ad30c

To me, neither of these two phenomena make any sense. I am new to Linux so it would not be surprising if I am not taking all relevant variables into account. Can anyone explain how these things are possible in a way that might help me get a stable and secure LM18 that will last?


Thank you.

[tgwilt]

Just a quick question --> have you tried using the terminal and the command ;sudo reboot?

I don't have anything else to offer, as others have added better advice than I have at this time.

Good luck! I'm using a Toshiba Satellite 755 Laptop that is older than what your computer (2011),

I truly hope your problem is solved. The people on this forum are well known for trying to help users solve problems.

[michael louwe]

@ frank84, .......

.

.
From what you have described, the unfixable restart problem should be caused by one of the recent buggy updates which led to irreversible damage to the LM system, and not the AMD graphics card. Another possible cause is hardware failure.

Last resort is to do a reinstall of LM 18.x after backing up your important data.

[Pierre]

"...PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable ..." Your motherboard is trying to load boot code from the ethernet port, and failing. Mint can't affect this, it's a setting in the BIOS screens where you enable/disable PXE boot.

that generally happens when the machine is set to Boot the Ethernet Port 1st off,
OR the BIOS can't find the HDD / operating system boot loader.

you could Test this out, by Booting from an Live Media & see if that does work properly, or not,
and then, as a Last resort is to do a reinstall of LM 18.x - after backing up your important data.

[frank84]

tgwilt, Thank you for your suggestion.

Yes, I tried 'sudo reboot" and sadly, I got the same result: it froze during restart.

P.S.
I believe my laptop is a bit older than that; I believe it was purchased in 2007. Thanks again for your attempt to help and your encouragement -- I needed that.

[DAMIEN1307]

Try and copy and paste this one in the terminal to restart...if it works, ill tell you how to create a launcher with this...enter your password when prompted by the terminal to do so...it will not show password or even astericks when typing in password:...DAMIEN

sudo shutdown -Pr now

[frank84]

Pierre, thank you very much for your input.

I am as sure as I can be that I am not configured to boot first via the Ethernet Port. Earlier, I made sure it was listed last in the boot order. Later, I disabled it altogether in the boot order list inside the BIOS setup.

Doesn't the fact that I can boot up just fine from a Shutdown/"power off" condition imply that the BIOS does not have any problem finding the "HDD / operating system boot loader" ?

If by chance "the BIOS can't find the HDD / operating system boot loader", how would you fix that problem?

Thank you.

[frank84]

DAMIEN1307, Thanks for your suggestion. I tried it and it behaved like a restart and ended up the same as all of my restart attempts: it froze when starting to boot up.

Does the result tell us anything new diagnostically?

Thank you.

[DAMIEN1307]

do you perhaps have either any USBs or external HDDs plugged in at the moment?...if so, unplug them now and just do a control, alt delete and see if it will reboot normally again...DAMIEN

[frank84]

Michael, Thank you so much for continuing to help me.

Regarding your comment "the unfixable restart problem should be caused by one of the recent buggy updates ": This revelation about "buggy updates" finally seems like something that might explain the strange, frustrating things I experienced during my attempts to achieve a stable and updated LM18.

I assume I need to start all over again by installing from a LM18 iso image. But I don't know if the LM18 Mate 64-bit image I burned on 14 July 2018 is OK or not? It did pass verification and authentication.

And if it isn't OK, is there a newer, fixed version of that image available yet? If not, how would I know when and where a fixed version is available?

The only things I could think to do to check up on this were to look at the Linux Mint Blog and the LM18 release notes. I didn't see any indication that the LM18 release notes have been updated in recent times and didn't see any date listed on the LM18 download page.

I did see some discussion of problems in the July Linux Mint Blog entry. However, the only mention related to LM18x was that problems with the kernel 4.15 were reported; but I have not used 4.15. And blog phrases like "Although it was fixed in a matter of hours in the repositories, it still affects our installation ISO images and it breaks EFI installations" were confusing to me. In addition, I couldn't figure out whether some phrases like that one apply to LM18 or only LM19.

I would really appreciate it if someone could please help me learn how to figure out when and where I can download a fixed version of the LM18 ISO and update it with fixed updates that have been revised since the "buggy updates" were discovered.

Thank you.

[frank84]

Damien, Thank you for your suggestion regarding trying "control, alt delete and see if it will reboot normally again"

The only USB items I had plugged in were a wifi adapter and a mouse. I unplugged both of them and tried control, alt delete: it brings up the "shutdown options bar" with several buttons as options including shutdown, restart, etc. If I repeat control, alt delete, it just refreshes the shutdown bar.

I tried tabbing to the restart button and hit enter: unfortunately, it froze during the restart boot up process just like all my other attempts to restart. When I try control, alt delete after the reboot freezes, it has no effect -- it stays frozen.

[DAMIEN1307]

hi frank...im in a quandry here trying to find anything in the linux mint downloads that would be clearly marked as being the new "V2" version...i cant even see anywhere that a newer date is being used verses the original release date...i for one really think that this should be made more obvious to everyone and especially for those that have had the original borked versions...hopefully someone else that is "in the know" might be able to "enlighten" the rest of us here so as not to repeat the problem...we need transparency in knowing for certain that the mint sites clearly label that it is or is not the new "V2"...i do think that the easiest way for you is to re-install but someone needs to confirm this version for you as well as for everyone else...DAMIEN

[frank84]

Damien, Thanks again for your comments.

I felt like way too much of a newbie to come out and say it as clearly as you did -- so thank you for spelling it out. I have wasted a huge amount of time and experienced a tremendous amount of frustration -- even before I posted in the forum. And even after starting this forum post a week ago, and emphasizing the unusual nature of the problem I was having, I hadn't even heard a word about any buggy updates or ISOs until earlier this morning in a post by Michael. So I assume many other people must have also been left in the dark about this.

If the ISO or updates I tried are known to be bad, then nearly all of the well intended posts to help me and all of my efforts to research and test the suggestions may have been a complete waste of everyone's time. This would be quite a shame. In my humble newbie opinion, it seems like common sense would dictate that a clear and bold notice about this problem should be placed at the top of forum pages and on the download pages for all affected distros. I realize that I am too new to LM to know what is normal for this forum and other LM web pages. And I hope, as a newcomer, I am not overstepping my bounds. But I am trying to help by giving a straight-forward opinion.

You mention "V2"; have you read something about a version 2 or anything at all regarding any fixes to LM18 ISO or its updates? If so, can you tell me where to look? I would really like to find out how I can learn when the LM18 ISO and its updates are fixed and where I can download them.

Thank you.

[DAMIEN1307]

here are just a few i could remember off hand on some of the various problems that happened and that were able to be resolved...DAMIEN

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=272073&p=1496234&h ... 7#p1496234

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=273302&hilit=damien1307

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=273302&hilit=damien1307&start=20

viewtopic.php?f=60&t=272468&p=1492062&h ... s#p1492062