No root menu

[Michael F. Stemper]

About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.

After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.

I know that it's not a mouse problem, since I can call up Firefox and
click left, right, and center there.

Fortunately, I have other boxes. But, I'd still like to fix whatever
happened to this one. It has me rather skittish about updates.

Suggestions on how to start? Obviously, I can't even do a tail on
/var/log/syslog, which would be my normal starting point.

Thanks,

[Paul]

Post by Michael F. Stemper
About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.
After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.
I know that it's not a mouse problem, since I can call up Firefox and
click left, right, and center there.
Fortunately, I have other boxes. But, I'd still like to fix whatever
happened to this one. It has me rather skittish about updates.
Suggestions on how to start? Obviously, I can't even do a tail on
/var/log/syslog, which would be my normal starting point.
Thanks,

Are the control-alt-F1 through control-alt-F7 function keys working ?

There are six virtual terminals plus a combo that causes the desktop
to come back instead.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/157617/reverting-from-ctrl-alt-f1

Then you can do your tail /var/log/syslog there.

Paul

[Michael F. Stemper]

Post by Paul

Post by Michael F. Stemper
About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.
After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.

Are the control-alt-F1 through control-alt-F7 function keys working ?

Kind of. This one actually has a bad keyboard.

Post by Paul
There are six virtual terminals plus a combo that causes the desktop
to come back instead.

<Fn>-<Alt>-<F2> gave me a place that let me type "xterm", the rest of
them had no visible effect. Throwing in <ctl> didn't change any
behavior, as the article suggested.


/var/log/syslog does not change when I click on the X-root. But,
/var/log/boot.log is over 200MB and growing. Its last line has:
[ *** ] in front of it, with the asterisks in red and moving.

The rest of the last line of /var/log/boot.log reads:
A start job is running for Hold until boot process finishes up (1w 2d 1h
59 min 44s / no limit)
The time keeps changing.

The time is roughly when I rebooted after accepting the latest updates.
(I'd thought that it was Thursday, but it could have been Friday.)

Is this:
- a known phenomenon?
- something that needs to be investigated further?
- something that says I should re-reboot and ignore?

[Paul]

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by Paul

Post by Michael F. Stemper
About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.
After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.

Are the control-alt-F1 through control-alt-F7 function keys working ?

Kind of. This one actually has a bad keyboard.

Post by Paul
There are six virtual terminals plus a combo that causes the desktop
to come back instead.

<Fn>-<Alt>-<F2> gave me a place that let me type "xterm", the rest of
them had no visible effect. Throwing in <ctl> didn't change any
behavior, as the article suggested.
/var/log/syslog does not change when I click on the X-root. But,
[ *** ] in front of it, with the asterisks in red and moving.
A start job is running for Hold until boot process finishes up (1w 2d 1h
59 min 44s / no limit)
The time keeps changing.
The time is roughly when I rebooted after accepting the latest updates.
(I'd thought that it was Thursday, but it could have been Friday.)
- a known phenomenon?
- something that needs to be investigated further?
- something that says I should re-reboot and ignore?

That would be something systemd has started, which has not
completed. If you could see the console log, you would see the
dancing red asterisk there.

Now, this thread is a scattershot, all over the place, but it
did have one suggestion to pass along.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1033613/start-job-is-running-for-hold-until-boot-process-finishes-up-18-04

When you start, you can enter grub and edit the boot entry.
(Maybe pressing shift key would work.)

The boot entry has

quiet splash $vt_handoff

at the end of one of the lines. The "splash" causes
the log on the screen to be covered with an image so
you can't see it. By removing the three words, then press
F10 to use the temporarily edited boot line, you can
then see what is printed out at start, including the
systemd line with the red asterisks indicating a problem.

The only problem with the systemd output at that point,
is it doesn't say what is wrong.

One of the major operations Ubuntu would carry out, would
be starting up the SNAP subsystem. Which has a series of
loop mounts. It's possible that takes some resources.
Systemd also stores logs, which can be quite voluminous,
but I think some adjustments have been made in the
past to trim the size of that, so it doesn't fill slash.

Paul

[Michael F. Stemper]

Post by Paul

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by Michael F. Stemper
About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.
After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.

/var/log/syslog does not change when I click on the X-root. But,
[ ***  ] in front of it, with the asterisks in red and moving.
A start job is running for Hold until boot process finishes up (1w 2d
1h 59 min 44s / no limit)
The time keeps changing.

That would be something systemd has started, which has not
completed. If you could see the console log, you would see the
dancing red asterisk there.
Now, this thread is a scattershot, all over the place, but it
did have one suggestion to pass along.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1033613/start-job-is-running-for-hold-until-boot-process-finishes-up-18-04
When you start, you can enter grub and edit the boot entry.
(Maybe pressing shift key would work.)
The boot entry has
   quiet splash $vt_handoff
at the end of one of the lines. The "splash" causes
the log on the screen to be covered with an image so
you can't see it. By removing the three words, then press
F10 to use the temporarily edited boot line, you can
then see what is printed out at start, including the
systemd line with the red asterisks indicating a problem.

After I got an xterm open, I called up top. Strangely, plymouthd
was showing nearly eighty minutes per day of CPU consumption. I
don't believe I've ever seen it anywhere near that amount, which
is about four times that shown for compiz.

When rebooting, I didn't spot the time when you're supposed to hit
<F12> or something to get into grub. The box came up okay, but
right-clicking on the X-root still has no effect. (I can use the
<ctrl>-<alt>-<T> trick mentioned cross-thread.)

However, boot.log isn't reporting any problems or growing at all.
Syslog is also uninteresting. Any suggestions on where to look
next?

[Jonathan N. Little]

Post by Michael F. Stemper
About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.
After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.

I assume you mean in Nautilus? If so maybe Nautilus is hung.

Need terminal? Why not CTTL+ALT+T? Then

killall nautilus && nohup nautilus &

Post by Michael F. Stemper
I know that it's not a mouse problem, since I can call up Firefox and
click left, right, and center there.
Fortunately, I have other boxes. But, I'd still like to fix whatever
happened to this one. It has me rather skittish about updates.
Suggestions on how to start? Obviously, I can't even do a tail on
/var/log/syslog, which would be my normal starting point.
Thanks,

[Michael F. Stemper]

Post by Jonathan N. Little

Post by Michael F. Stemper
About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.
After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.

I assume you mean in Nautilus?

I wasn't "in" anything except the window manager (gnome or unity,
whichever one is the default for 16.04 LTS).

Post by Jonathan N. Little
Need terminal? Why not CTTL+ALT+T? Then

Hey, that's slick. It give me a more normal (to me, anyway) xterm than
did typing "xterm" in the bar brought up by <ALT>-<Fsomething>. That
one had a teeny font size, no menu bar, and you couldn't copy and paste
to/from it.

Thanks,

[gamo]

Post by Michael F. Stemper
Economists have correctly predicted seven of the last three recessions.

Great quote!
And currently working on more predictions...
But reality is that resources are nearly limited.

[Jonathan N. Little]

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by Jonathan N. Little

Post by Michael F. Stemper
About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.
After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.

I assume you mean in Nautilus?

I wasn't "in" anything except the window manager (gnome or unity,
whichever one is the default for 16.04 LTS).

16,04 default desktop is Unity with compiz as the window manager.
Nautilus is the default file manager. What I did not understand was what
you mean by "the root map"? Do you mean your directory in the file
manager (nautilus)?

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by Jonathan N. Little
Need terminal? Why not CTTL+ALT+T? Then

Hey, that's slick. It give me a more normal (to me, anyway) xterm than
did typing "xterm" in the bar brought up by <ALT>-<Fsomething>. That
one had a teeny font size, no menu bar, and you couldn't copy and paste
to/from it.
Thanks,

ALT+F2

BTW in Unity press and hold the Windows (Super) Key and a list of useful
hotkeys are listed.

[Michael F. Stemper]

Post by Jonathan N. Little

Post by Michael F. Stemper

Post by Jonathan N. Little

Post by Michael F. Stemper
About a week and a half back, I accepted the latest updates to 16.04
LTS and let update-manager restart the box.
After it came back, I logged in with no problems. Unfortunately, now
the root map doesn't respond to right-clicks -- no menu to give me
access to xterms.

I assume you mean in Nautilus?

I wasn't "in" anything except the window manager (gnome or unity,
whichever one is the default for 16.04 LTS).

16,04 default desktop is Unity with compiz as the window manager.
Nautilus is the default file manager. What I did not understand was what
you mean by "the root map"? Do you mean your directory in the file
manager (nautilus)?

Sorry, I should have said "root window". My sloppy terminology of
referring to it as the "root map", which is the image displayed there,
dates back decades, and was repeatedly corrected by pedantic co-workers.

Post by Jonathan N. Little
BTW in Unity press and hold the Windows (Super) Key and a list of useful
hotkeys are listed.

Neat. That'll take a few hours of study.