[mythtv-users] system crash

[David Williams]

This is great information.Thanks much Stephen. 

d. 
 


     On Saturday, October 3, 2015 7:56 PM, Stephen Worthington <stephen_agent at jsw.gen.nz> wrote:
   

 On Sat, 3 Oct 2015 15:42:11 +0000 (UTC), you wrote:

> My system had ahiccup a while back and I thought I'd ask the group's advice.Immediately following a software update, which I noted included avideo driver, my system crashed. It would load through to accessingthe purple Ubuntu splash screen then flip over to for want of abetter description an emergency menu. After repeated iterations I wasunable to figure out how to access the system. I can't tell you why Ithought to take the next step but I did – I swapped the currentvideo card, a GeForce 730 for an old GeForce 7600 -- and it got mein. I went to Software & Updates > Additional Drivers where Iwas able to select a driver compatible with the 730. Generallyspeaking, I opt for the most recent proprietary, tested version. 
>Were this to reoccurhow else might I approach the problem?
>The OS is Ubuntu14.04 and at the time Mythtv was 27.4 fixes.

I have had this same problem with Mythbuntu at least twice now.

The first thing to try after a regular boot fails is to see if
Ctrl-Alt-F1 will bring up a text mode screen with a prompt, or if you
can login using ssh.  It is always a good idea to have the ability to
use an ssh login configured, even if you do not normally use it, just
in case something like this happens.

After that, you can boot using one of the options on the Grub menu to
get a text mode screen.  That will normally still work even with a bad
video driver.  Then you can install the older video driver from there.
If you do not have your system set up to show the Grub menu each boot,
see here:


http://askubuntu.com/questions/16042/how-to-get-to-the-grub-menu-at-boot-time

Once you have the Grub menu, go down one item and select "Advanced
options for..." and on the menu that opens, select the one marked
"(recovery mode)".  That should boot into single user mode and give
you a text mode menu screen with some more boot options.  Select an
appropriate option, such as "root" for a root prompt, or maybe
"failsafeX" to run in a failsafe graphics mode.  I have not ever used
that latter, so I am not entirely sure of what it does, but the "root"
option always works for me.  I also recommend using the "fsck" option
on that menu after a power failure or crash where the filesystesms did
not get shut down properly.  That option runs fsck on all your
filesystems (in parallel where possible) to check and repair any
damage.

If all else fails, it can be possible to boot a live image and use it
to change things on the hard disk, but I do not know how to use that
to change the video driver.  I have used it for repairing Grub, and it
can be used to alter the Grub files to make its menu appear on boot.

And an option I have contemplated for ultimate emergencies, but never
tried, is to remove the boot drive and install it on another PC which
has virtual machine software such as VirtualBox installed.  Set up a
virtual boot of the boot partition directly from the hard drive.
Configure VirtualBox to use virtual graphics hardware that is
compatible with the bad driver, or hardware that will make it boot
into text mode, and it should be able to be booted well enough to be
fixed.
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