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My computer, with Ubuntu 14.04 on it, will only boot to the login screen, after what looks to be a graphical glitch--the screen flashes with red-green-blue stripes and then goes black before the login screen appears.

When I attempt to login another graphics glitch occurs and the login screen appears again.

This started after I began having errors when trying to access the shared documents of another computer on my LAN network--this computer also has Ubuntu 14.04 on it--when I tried to enter, the usual confirmation box popped, on clicking OK, three more confirmation boxes appeared, after closing all of the boxes and restarting the other computer I tried again and had the same problem. I noticed at that point that Ubuntu wanted to update, figuring that this might solve the problem I let it do so, the update completed fine and asked to reboot, so I did and that is when the login glitch started.

I have been unable to login since then, I can however access the harddrive from another Ubuntu 14.04 installed on another harddrive.

I have tried this solution to no avail: https://askubuntu.com/a/223634/391024

I don't know if this is related or not, but for months now, on boot-up a brief terminal message appears with something about the nvidia graphics card, unsure if this is an error message or not.

Thank you for any help!

UPDATE:

After installing a kernel update on another computer it began having the same problem, however on that computer I managed to regain access to it by booting it into the second-newest kernal. It seems there must be a problem with the latest kernel.

On the first computer I tried the same but to no avail.

It seems I have the same or a similar problem as in this question: Can't get past login screen after 14.04 kernel update

Rene
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  • You can read the error message and copy & paste them here by viewing /var/log/syslog. I don't mean to rush you but you could also upgrade to 16.04 which most of us did about 18 months ago. If you do more people will be in the same "experience-land" and be able to provide help when it is needed. That said you can still wait another 18 months or so before 14.04 LTS EOL (End of Life) . In the mean time: https://askubuntu.com/questions/624966/cant-login-after-nvidia-driver-install-v-14-04 and https://askubuntu.com/questions/762831/ubuntu-16-stuck-in-login-loop-after-installing-nvidia-364-drivers – WinEunuuchs2Unix Feb 22 '18 at 02:38
  • I'm basically still a newbie at Ubuntu, where would I enter '/var/log/syslog'? Thanks for your help, but neither of the solutions you linked to worked, I'm truly stumped at this point. – Rene Feb 22 '18 at 05:31
  • You should try the answer on your link that has 31 up-votes. It has two commands to recreate the Xauthority file. As for viewing log files (/var/log/Xorg.0.log) is a better one to look at, click on File Manager, select "Computer", select vardirectory, select log subdirectory, scroll through files to the one you want, right click on file, select gedit. – WinEunuuchs2Unix Feb 22 '18 at 11:26
  • I just tried that solution as well, and it does not work. I cannot access anything beyond the login screen. – Rene Feb 23 '18 at 05:20
  • Just managed to gain access again by booting into the second-newest kernal. – Rene Feb 23 '18 at 05:37
  • Correction, I managed to gain access to another computer which developed the same problem by booting into an older kernel. Unfortunately this does not work on the first computer. – Rene Feb 23 '18 at 05:59
  • I have exactly the same problem. Booting an older kernel version as a workaround for now... – bluenote10 Feb 23 '18 at 08:21
  • Booting with kernel 4.4.0-112 that doesn't have Spectre Security fix seems to fix the problem: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg/+bug/1750937 – WinEunuuchs2Unix Feb 23 '18 at 11:16
  • How would I disable/remove the Spectre Security fix? – Rene Feb 24 '18 at 02:37

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