Ubuntu: Blank screen, blinking cursor on boot The Question: Occasionally my Ubuntu 10.04 PC won't boot properly. It gets past Grub and then stops at a blank screen and blinking cursor. From what I've read, this blinking cursor screen is presented by Ubuntu itself and not Grub, so I assume the boot process gets halted for some reason. Has anyone any guidance on how to diagnose this issue or what the cause is likely to be? Normally I need to press the reset button to reboot the PC and often it will reboot fine. The fact that it is intermittent is what confuses me. Any pointers on diagnosing the problem would be much appreciated. ---- **** Edit: **** It's been a while, mainly because my server has been up for a long time. It looks like I've captured a recurrence of this issue, I copied the messages file and the dmesg file and had a look where processing seems to have stopped and found the messages below. I'm going to do some research on Google etc. but figured I'd put it up here in case anyone can help and wants to earn themselves some points. I should mention that the ondemand governor failed message happens on successful boots but the other two don't appear to. Oct 11 23:17:21 linux kernel: [ 98.905370] ondemand governor failed, too long transition latency of HW, fallback to performance governor Oct 11 23:21:48 linux kernel: Kernel logging (proc) stopped. Oct 11 23:21:48 linux rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="4.2.0" x-pid="697" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com/"] exiting on signal 15. I found a few vague references to rolling over of logfiles at boot time being the cause Solutions Sample (Please watch the whole video to see all solutions, in order of how many people found them helpful): == This solution helped 21 people == Hold shift during boot, then hit e to edit the GRUB entry. Remove the part that says "quiet splash" and replace it with "text" to see what's happening during boot. == This solution helped 1 person == I have had this problem in the past, and found that it appears to happen on some kernels and not others although I have not had this issue since upgrading to Meerkat. But often times I found I would have to select a prior Kernel to load into Ubuntu properly. == This solution helped 1 person == I like maco's answer, but another thing I'd check is that your hard drive is healthy. Check in System ＞ Administration ＞ Disk Utility, look at the SMART status, it should be "Disk is healthy," otherwise your drive might be failing. == This solution helped 1 person == I've had that problem quite a few times now, but I could distinguish at least three different variants: * resumes boot after pressing Enter * resumes boot without doing anything, after a while * never resumes boot, but accepts ctrl-alt-del, indicating that there's still some life in the kernel This has led me to believe that when you see what you're describing, the actual problem is that the quiet boot option is hiding "something" from you. For instance, I could track down one of my incidents to the system recovering (not the usual routine check) my harddisk. I have since removed the quiet option from my grub entries. With thanks & praise to God! With thanks to the many people who have made this project possible! | Content (except music & images) licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 | Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music | Images: https://stocksnap.io/license & others | With thanks to user Stefano Palazzo (https://askubuntu.com/users/1067), user NW15062 (https://askubuntu.com/users/3366), user Mr. Money Killer (https://askubuntu.com/users/115886), user maco (https://askubuntu.com/users/1158), user Hanno Fietz (https://askubuntu.com/users/4731), user dgmdan (https://askubuntu.com/users/3058), user conorgriffin (https://askubuntu.com/users/1449), and the Stack Exchange Network (http://askubuntu.com/questions/2622). Trademarks are property of their respective owners. Disclaimer: All information is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. You are responsible for your own actions. Please contact me if anything looks amiss at Roel D.OT VandePaar A.T gmail.com.