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[Solved] Ubuntu 12.04 suddenly stops booting

Asked by Julianloui

Ubuntu 12.04 repeatedly fails to boot up since this morning on my 2004 Compaq Presario computer but luckily the companion O.S. Linux Mint on the same machine works. There is plenty of hard-drive spare room and RAM. Can someone tell me how to debug this problem?

Thanks very much.

Julianloui

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

What happens when you try to boot?

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Julianloui (julianloui) said : 		#2

I see only a dark screen. I haven't encountered this phenomenon before. Running recovery boot-up does not help and Ubunutu just shuts off affterwards each time.

Julianloui

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Julianloui (julianloui) said : 		#3

Last night I got into Ubuntu 12.04 using the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS live CD and ran boot-repair. The program ran successfully according to all screen indications but I still can't boot up the system. However, now I do see the "Ubuntu 12.04" graphic screen briefly before the system shuts down as before.

If I boot up Ubuntu in text mode and type the startx command, Ubuntu shuts down immediately also.

Julianloui

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Julianloui (julianloui) said : 		#4

The basic cause was a locking .Xauthority file. Today the trouble went away as soon as I had removed it and rebooted Ubuntu.

Julianloui2014-8-26

Good news. Today I accessed Ubuntu 12.04 again via text mode and executed startx again after learning that the Intel 82845G video card has an 8.0MB memory. After about 20 minutes, luckily this time the system returned the following telling error:

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Xauth: error in locking authority file /home/jul/.Xauthority[/COLOR]

Ubuntu's GUI came back to life after I removed .Xauthority, and issued the startx command.

[COLOR="blue"]It pays to suspect and immediately remove this file whenever a dark-screen GUI problem pops up. [/COLOR]. As we know, the file regenerates itself afterwards.

julianloui

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Julianloui (julianloui) said : 		#5

2014-08-26

This problem has been solved. Please see Post #4.

Julianloui Good news. Today I accessed Ubuntu 12.04 again via text mode and executed startx again after learning t