Blinking cursor after showing LM logo (Unable to boot into graphical interface)

[random_qt]

I had installed Linux Mint 21 Vanessa a few months back, and was using it in dual boot along with Windows 11 on my Dell Vostro 5625. It was working very well until yesterday when it stopped booting. I can still see and select the OS from the grub menu at startup. Choosing windows works as expected and I am booted to windows. On the other hand selecting Linux Mint, leads to the linux mint logo for few seconds and then a blank black screen with a blinking cursor at the top left appears.

This appears to be a somewhat common problem as I could find quite a few similar posts on forums but none of the solutions suggested seems to work for me.
I have tried editing the grub entry menu(by pressing 'e' on the grub menu) and adding

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radeon.modeset=0

or

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nomodeset

, both of this doesn't change anything at all.

I have tried booting to recovery mode and use dpkg, and the resume but it didn't work.

I have tried to select "root" on the recovery menu and then use the command line to purge and reinstall certain amd drivers, but it didn't work either.

This is the output of inxi -Fxxxrz

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System:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-41-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.2.0
    Desktop: Cinnamon 5.4.8 tk: GTK 3.24.33 wm: Mutter vt: 7 dm: LightDM 1.30.0
    Distro: Linux Mint 21 Vanessa base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Vostro 5625 v: 1.4.0
    serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10 v: 1.4.0
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Dell model: 0VWCRM v: A00 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: Dell
    v: 1.4.0 date: 06/27/2022
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 37.2 Wh (68.9%) condition: 54.0/54.0 Wh (100.0%)
    volts: 15.6 min: 15.0 model: BYD DELL WV3K81C type: Unknown
    serial: <filter> status: Discharging
CPU:
  Info: 6-core model: AMD Ryzen 5 5625U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64
    type: MT MCP smt: enabled arch: Zen 3 rev: 0 cache: L1: 384 KiB L2: 3 MiB
    L3: 16 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1902 high: 2271 min/max: 400/4388 boost: enabled cores:
    1: 1815 2: 1816 3: 1818 4: 1806 5: 2271 6: 2270 7: 1815 8: 1965 9: 1815
    10: 1815 11: 1816 12: 1813 bogomips: 55091
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Barcelo vendor: Dell driver: amdgpu v: kernel pcie:
    speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1
    bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:15e7 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Microdia Integrated_Webcam_FHD type: USB driver: uvcvideo
    bus-ID: 1-4:2 chip-ID: 0c45:6a1b class-ID: 0e02
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu,ati
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1200 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x317mm (20.0x12.5")
    s-diag: 599mm (23.6")
  Monitor-1: eDP res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 141 size: 345x215mm (13.6x8.5")
    diag: 407mm (16")
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (LLVM 13.0.1 DRM 3.42 5.15.0-41-generic)
    v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.1 direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Renoir Radeon High Definition Audio vendor: Dell
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 05:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:1637 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor vendor: Dell
    driver: snd_rn_pci_acp3x v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 05:00.5 chip-ID: 1022:15e2 class-ID: 0480
  Device-3: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
    v: kernel pcie: speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 05:00.6 chip-ID: 1022:15e3
    class-ID: 0403
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-41-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Dell driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: 2000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: MEDIATEK MT7921 802.11ax PCI Express Wireless Network Adapter
    vendor: Foxconn driver: mt7921e v: kernel pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    bus-ID: 04:00.0 chip-ID: 14c3:7961 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp4s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Foxconn / Hon Hai Wireless_Device type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: 3-3:3 chip-ID: 0489:e0c8 class-ID: e001 serial: <filter>
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 0 state: up address: <filter>
    bt-v: 3.0 lmp-v: 5.2 sub-v: 2202 hci-v: 5.2 rev: 915
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 535.67 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: KIOXIA model: KBG50ZNS512G NVMe 512GB
    size: 476.94 GiB speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter>
    rev: 11200104 temp: 31.9 C scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: SanDisk model: Cruzer Blade
    size: 58.73 GiB type: N/A serial: <filter> rev: 1.00 scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 7.49 GiB used: 201.5 MiB (2.6%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 44.0 36.0 mobo: 35.0 36.0 sodimm: SODIMM 36.0
    gpu: amdgpu temp: 43.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Repos:
  Packages: apt: 2078
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
    1: deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 21 _Vanessa_ - Release amd64 20220726]/ jammy main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com vanessa main upstream import backport
    2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
  Processes: 341 Uptime: 58m wakeups: 9207 Memory: 14.98 GiB
  used: 3.45 GiB (23.0%) Init: systemd v: 249 runlevel: 5 Compilers:
  gcc: 11.2.0 alt: 11 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: gnome-terminal
  inxi: 3.3.13

Right now I am posting this from the live usb. What should I do next? Is there anything I can even do or do I just need to reinstall the os over again(which I don't want to do because I will have setup all my preferences, etc again)

[SMG]

I had installed Linux Mint 21 Vanessa a few months back, and was using it in dual boot along with Windows 11 on my Dell Vostro 5625. It was working very well until yesterday when it stopped booting.

Welcome to the forum, random_qt.

Do you have any Timeshift snapshots to which you can revert? If so, you can use Timeshift on your live session to restore to a snapshot on your hard drive.

For future reference, your system does not use a radeon driver so adding radeon.modeset=0 does nothing.

I have tried to select "root" on the recovery menu and then use the command line to purge and reinstall certain amd drivers, but it didn't work either.

The AMD drivers load automatically from the kernel. What did you "purge and reinstall"?

Did you try booting into an older kernel? Maybe a kernel update caused a problem. To boot into an older kernel, bring up the grub menu, select the Advanced Options, and then select the desired kernel.

[random_qt]

Thanks SMG

Do you have any Timeshift snapshots to which you can revert? If so, you can use Timeshift on your live session to restore to a snapshot on your hard drive.

Unfortunately No, I don't have any timeshift snapshot of the system.

For future reference, your system does not use a radeon driver so adding radeon.modeset=0 does nothing.

I see. I am kinda amateurish regarding knowledge of different brands of graphic cards, are you sure that I don't have a radeon, because I can see a "AMD Radeon GRAPHICS" sticker on the bottom right side of the keyboard.

The AMD drivers load automatically from the kernel. What did you "purge and reinstall"?

I basically used these two following commands as suggested by this article https://www.fosslinux.com/50928/fix-lin ... -issue.htm

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aptitude purge xserver-xorg-video-radeon

aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-radeon

Did you try booting into an older kernel? Maybe a kernel update caused a problem. To boot into an older kernel, bring up the grub menu, select the Advanced Options, and then select the desired kernel.

Just tried this as well, I could see two different kernel version in the "Advanced Options", tried booting from both of them, but it didn't work

[SMG]

are you sure that I don't have a radeon, because I can see a "AMD Radeon GRAPHICS" sticker on the bottom right side of the keyboard.

That is the name of the GPU. That is not the name of the graphics driver.

Here is your graphics output and I have highlighted the name of the driver.
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD Barcelo vendor: Dell driver: amdgpu v: kernel pcie:
speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1
bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:15e7 class-ID: 0300
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu,ati
unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1200 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x317mm (20.0x12.5")
s-diag: 599mm (23.6")
Monitor-1: eDP res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 141 size: 345x215mm (13.6x8.5")
diag: 407mm (16")
OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (LLVM 13.0.1 DRM 3.42 5.15.0-41-generic)
v: 4.6 Mesa 22.0.1 direct render: Yes

Your system is using the amdgpu driver. That is the newest driver for AMD. The radeon driver is the driver used for older GPUs. AMD stopped using the radeon driver when they changed the technology of their GPUs a number of years ago.

I basically used these two following commands as suggested by this article https://www.fosslinux.com/50928/fix-lin ... -issue.htm

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aptitude purge xserver-xorg-video-radeon

aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-radeon

Those are directions for an ATI card. ATI was a company that AMD bought years ago and it no longer exists. You have brand new hardware so you do not have ATI Radeon graphics.

Just tried this as well, I could see two different kernel version in the "Advanced Options", tried booting from both of them, but it didn't work

Were both of those kernels 5.15 versions?

The good news is you are able to boot to a live session. In the live session you can access your hard drive (with the File Manager app) and make copies of anything you might not have backed up. You should be able to make a copy of the hidden folders in your home directory so you have a copy of your settings as well.

The fact when you try and boot in recovery mode that you are ending up on what I refer to as the blue-screen recovery mode means there is a problem with the install. I have no guesses as to what it might be which makes it harder to troubleshoot. You have already tried dpkg in recovery mode so I'm rather out of ideas.

I do strongly recommend using Timeshift snapshots or some other type of system backup in the future as it would have likely made quick work of fixing this issue.

[random_qt]

thanks for the reply SMG

Were both of those kernels 5.15 versions?

Yes, I just checked they are both of 5.15 versions. Specifically 5.15.0-56 and 5.15.0-41

I do strongly recommend using Timeshift snapshots or some other type of system backup in the future as it would have likely made quick work of fixing this issue.

Agree

The good news is you are able to boot to a live session. In the live session you can access your hard drive (with the File Manager app) and make copies of anything you might not have backed up. You should be able to make a copy of the hidden folders in your home directory so you have a copy of your settings as well.

The fact when you try and boot in recovery mode that you are ending up on what I refer to as the blue-screen recovery mode means there is a problem with the install. I have no guesses as to what it might be which makes it harder to troubleshoot. You have already tried dpkg in recovery mode so I'm rather out of ideas.

So I should probably go ahead with the re-installation. Can you suggest which folders exactly should I look into to get access to hidden folders(for copy of settings). Also what will be the exact procedure to merge that backed-up data into my newly installed linux mint (for example in which folder will I have to transfer it, etc). Apologies in advance if this is a noob question.

[MiZoG]

Hey, random_qt?

Can you suggest which folders exactly should I look into to get access to hidden folders(for copy of settings). Also what will be the exact procedure to merge that backed-up data into my newly installed linux mint (for example in which folder will I have to transfer it, etc).

Which are the essential apps that you think they'll give you trouble when you try to set up once more?
If you think this is not biggie, just go ahead and reinstall your system.

Traditionally Linux installation guides recommend creating a dedicated home partition. You reinstall your system anytime you want (root partition) and re-use your user files and settings from your previous installation (home partition). But when you dual-boot and have not plenty of storage space, I think default partitioning scheme is better (one single partition for root n home).

Lastly, have you deactivated fast startup on Windows? It is a semi-hibernation trick Windows do to load faster at startup but it can prevent devices from initializing on Linux when you switch OSes after a reboot and not a full shutdown of Windows.

[SMG]

Can you suggest which folders exactly should I look into to get access to hidden folders(for copy of settings).

I do not know which settings you want to keep. Did you just mean you wanted to keep Linux Mint settings or did you install apps that might have saved settings?

Any folder or file name which starts with a . is a hidden one. There is a setting in File Manager to show hidden files. If you have room on an external drive to do so, I suggest just showing the hidden files and then copying the entire home directory. Then after you re-install, you can move settings you may want one at a time into the new install (swap out the files/folders).

[random_qt]

I do not know which settings you want to keep. Did you just mean you wanted to keep Linux Mint settings or did you install apps that might have saved settings?

Both actually

Then after you re-install, you can move settings you may want one at a time into the new install (swap out the files/folders).

But where will I have to move it? Do you mean copying the entire home directory and then move my files and folders into the home directory of my newly installed OS?

[SMG]

Then after you re-install, you can move settings you may want one at a time into the new install (swap out the files/folders).

But where will I have to move it? Do you mean copying the entire home directory and then move my files and folders into the home directory of my newly installed OS?

You would make a copy of your entire home directory just like you would do if you are backing up your system.

Then after you re-install, you can swap out the customized folders/files from your backup copy to your new install.

If you have added apps, you would need to reinstall them before swapping out the defaults for your customized ones.

I would expect that many files are the same and would not need swapped.

[random_qt]

Hey

Lastly, have you deactivated fast startup on Windows? It is a semi-hibernation trick Windows do to load faster at startup but it can prevent devices from initializing on Linux when you switch OSes after a reboot and not a full shutdown of Windows.

tried this as well with no effect. I am jut going to do a reinstall now, I think.