Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

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ralf
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Joined: 2005/11/25 20:10:20

Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by ralf » 2021/12/28 11:55:40

Hi I have apparently moved to Centos 8 stream (I thought I updated to the latest centos 8 version ...) but the server runs fine as webserver and email server.
I have one big problem though. I cannot login anymore since Dec 24; the GUI login screen is frozen and shows "Friday, December 24". It's Dec 28 now. I cannot login, mouse and keyboard are completely unresponsive. I switched keypbord to USB type, no difference. Remote connection via VNC works, but only a black screen is shown.
I have tried to reset the gnome gdm via Ctrl Alt F1-12 to get a console type login window, but no response whatsoever.

I run the server without SSSH activated (installed and configured, but not running. It is activated by default upon a reboot), so I cannot interact with the server via GUI or tty. I really heasitate to shut it down and see if I can login again..... It may perhaps fail completely. I rely on this server to work.
Getting a backup server up and running is quite some work too, with the email mirroring etc.
Which other ways are there to get access to the login screen/prompt and manually restart gnome? Or someting else....

Any help is really apreciated! Thx

pjsr2
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Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by pjsr2 » 2021/12/28 13:21:12

Did you try to pull out and re-insert the connectors for keyboard, mouse and display?

If this server is to be used for critical tasks such as an email server, I would recommend against using CentOS Stream as the operating system. Stream is a kind of beta for future RHEL releases, not a stable operating system release.

ralf
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Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by ralf » 2021/12/28 14:04:41

Thanks for the reply!

Yes, I did pull out and re-insert the cables for the keyboard, mouse and display. No difference.

I fully agree I shoud not have switched to Stream, and actualy, I thought I was updating to the latest CENTOS 8 regular update, but instead it showed to be the stream version, which I did not want for exactly the reasons you mention!
I think it was a bad way to automatically "upgrade" people to Stream, when running the dnf -update comand without giving a clear warning on what was going to happen!!

Any other tips? I can't think of any other way, then to reboot and hope for the best, which is really very, very scary!

tunk
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Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by tunk » 2021/12/28 15:47:21

It could be that the graphics card driver is incompatible with the Stream kernel.

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TrevorH
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Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by TrevorH » 2021/12/28 16:43:52

I fully agree I shoud not have switched to Stream, and actualy, I thought I was updating to the latest CENTOS 8 regular update, but instead it showed to be the stream version, which I did not want for exactly the reasons you mention!
There is not an automatic upgrade from CentOS Linux 8 to Stream. It was suggested but decided against. The only way you get Stream is if you install it or you run the suggested yum swap on the centos-linux-release -> centos-stream-release and related packages.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

ralf
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Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by ralf » 2021/12/28 19:20:42

TrevorH wrote:
2021/12/28 16:43:52
I fully agree I shoud not have switched to Stream, and actualy, I thought I was updating to the latest CENTOS 8 regular update, but instead it showed to be the stream version, which I did not want for exactly the reasons you mention!
There is not an automatic upgrade from CentOS Linux 8 to Stream. It was suggested but decided against. The only way you get Stream is if you install it or you run the suggested yum swap on the centos-linux-release -> centos-stream-release and related packages.
Interesting! I did definitely not use those upgrade commands you mention. However, the system reported "centos8 stream". How is that possible? Or what have I missed here?

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TrevorH
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Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by TrevorH » 2021/12/28 19:24:02

Ah, there was a bug in the installer that added "Stream" to the kernel comment in the grub config but that doesn't mean you are running stream. Run rpm -qa \*-release and see what -release packages are installed. Yours should say centos-linux-release.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

ralf
Posts: 132
Joined: 2005/11/25 20:10:20

Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by ralf » 2021/12/28 19:28:52

TrevorH wrote:
2021/12/28 19:24:02
Ah, there was a bug in the installer that added "Stream" to the kernel comment in the grub config but that doesn't mean you are running stream. Run rpm -qa \*-release and see what -release packages are installed. Yours should say centos-linux-release.
Thanks Trevor, that could explain it! However, as my original post mentions, I can no longer access my machine to check this :-(
Any hints how I can get access again?
Thx!

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TrevorH
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Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by TrevorH » 2021/12/28 19:56:37

You'll have to get someone to reboot it at the remote location now. I would suggest enabling sshd and restricting access to it to known ip addresses in future so that you can access remotely.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

ralf
Posts: 132
Joined: 2005/11/25 20:10:20

Re: Login screen frozen keybord/mouse not responsive

Post by ralf » 2022/01/22 18:03:17

After some time not knowing what to do, I suddenly remembered the Webmin package.
And yes, it is installed and I can access the machine using Webmin! Great progress!

Running the command proposed by Trevor earlier, I got:
> cat /etc/centos-release
CentOS Stream release 8
> rpm -qa \*-release
remi-release-8.4-1.el8.remi.noarch
epel-release-8-13.el8.noarch
centos-stream-release-8.6-1.el8.noarch
rpmfusion-free-release-8-0.1.noarch
epel-next-release-8-13.el8.noarch
How on earth did I get there.... I have been VERY cautious NOT to jump into the stream release, yet I seem to be running it? How is this possible?
Probably also the reason for my problems.

So now back to my orignal question: how do I restart the procss which allows me to login via the GNOME login window at the serverterminal? The screen is frozen, showing "December 24th 14.00 hours". The mouse is dead and the keyboard is dead, in spite of plugging them out and in again.

Many thanks for any hints!

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