Ubuntu 11.04 Keeps Restarting Randomly

Hello, my name is James and I've been off Microsoft for 3 weeks now, and i feel great!!

I removed all Microsoft from my laptop recently and switched OS to Ubuntu 10.10. I was fed up with Vista becoming lethargic, not responding and being complete doss. I switched over from other MS packages just because i could without cost.

Anyway, recent upgrade of Ubuntu to 11.04 came out, and since i upgraded my laptop has randomly restarted - screen goes black, several lines of small text flash up then I'm straight back to the startup login screen.

Problem seems to be worst shortly after switching on and when I'm running several items at once on dual screen, i.e., Chrome (several open tabs), Thunderbird, etc.

I've tried following similar problems in the Launchpad bug reports, but I'm afraid my low level of geekery does not allow me to follow many of the patches, error reporting, etc. I can open Terminal, but I don't know how to generate the necessary reports - Launchpad seems very helpful but seems suited for higher level users (as does Ubuntu, but I've made the switch and it's too late to go back now!!)

 

Can you post some information on your system?

Including video card - ATI or NVIDIA?

Was this an upgrade or clean install?

I would try to select Gnome Classic instead of Unity to start the debug steps.

 

As usual, BOOMM is on it.

IMO, it is too soon to install 11.04, as a flurry of "fixes" will be forthcoming for the next month or so, especially for a release with so many new ideas and features. But the beauty of Linux is that you can if you want to!

I also wanted to see the new Ubuntu 11.04, but installed it as a VirtualBox VM for the reason cited above. Somewhere during the install I received an error message that my hardware didn't support the Unity interface requirements, so Gnome would be installed/displayed instead.

I remember reading a Unity article in Linux Format that Unity wouldn't install to all machines because of legacy GPU specs and would fall back to Gnome on those machines. I don't know if my host box specs were the limiting factor, or the VirtualBox GPU simulator was the limiter, but either way, Ubuntu 11.04 looks nearly identical to 10.10 and 10.04 on my machine. If you installed over Vista, I'm guessing your computer has some of that legacy hardware also. Despite my curiousity, I don't get to see the new Ubuntu 11.04 with Unity...yet....perhaps one of those bug patches is forthcoming for guys like us.

Point of all this is that I believe BOOMM has already identified the issue...most likely a video driver issue, perhaps also coupled with a Unity interface issue. BOOMM has helped me tremendously in the past, so give him the requested inputs and he'll provide the requested solution.

In the event that BOOMM determines that Unity is the culprit and cannot be remedied at this time, I'd reinstall 10.10 if that was performing well for you. Simply back up the home folder to an external USB device using the same LiveCD you installed 10.10 with. A LiveCD should detect any attached USB devices and mount them to your desktop; simply select your home folder, copy it and paste it to your USB device. Once completed, right click that USB device on your desktop and "safely remove" the device. Then, just reinstall Ubuntu 10.10 on your machine, choosing the "use whole disk" option for installation.

Once reinstalled, I'd recommend to a newbie to ONLY upgrade to LTS (long term support) releases. To do this, choose System>Administration>Update Manager. Choose "Settings" button; the middle tab will be "updates" and a pull down menu will be at the bottom of that window; choose "long term support releases only" to only be notified of LTS upgrades. LTS happen every 2 years and the next LTS will be in April 2012, so you'll have another 12 months to become very intimate and friendly with your system!

But start with BOOMM...if he can't help you, my suggestion is a fallback fix. Good luck!

 

Thank you for the reply, guys - i've had a hectic weekend. Hedon James - thanks for the indepth reply, but I really hope I do not need to resort to this. If it does come to this your advice looks invaluable.

BOOMM - steep learning curve continues. I did manage to generate a Hardinfo report, and if that is any us I will post it.

11.04 was an upgrade from 10.10 which itself was a clean install over Vista. I did run a Vista/Ubuntu partition, but I messed up leaving myself short of diskspace for Ubuntu, so I did a clean install - no more Vista.

Video card (as far as i can establish):

- VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M92 LP [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series]

Laptop is a HP Probook4710 and I run a second monitor as expanded desktop.

p.s. Also learned how to switch between Unity and Gnome - I'm not comfortable with Unity, but I reckon it will grow on me.

 

misterbojangles, does this mean you solved this?

 

No, still struggling with random shut down and restart.
Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

1st of this is just an opinion but I would say it is backed up by facts. Ubuntu seems to always have quirks. But the distros that are "BASED" on Ubuntu seem to work great OoTB (Out of the Box). IE Ultimate Edition and Pinguy to name a couple that I thought were excellent.

Again, it's just opinion but I would bet ten to one, going with one of these would fix the issue. BOoMM also came up with some great points. Another thing I have found is, "upgrading" to a new release can and often will cause problems. If you have your home directory on a seperate partition, you are always better off, wiping the OS and installing from scratch the new release. Or just back up your important files if you have not given "home" it's own partition. I personally never give "home" it's own partition but that is me. Others will have a different and certainly not wrong opinion on that.

All the best,

Ian

 

I am in the midst of a physical residence move and so cannot give you the best help. My only suggestion, since you are so new to the upgrade-
Reinstall 10.10 as it is stable and wait to upgrade unless you are really excited about Unity and FF 4. :major

I have long been a fan of Linux Mint as well.

 

This is a recurring problem in Ubuntu. I think its because something gets installed badly or not clicked for upgrade in synaptic/update-manager: notice the choice to choose features to upgrade is left to user discretion, and; something which got updated individually will register as good but wasn't good for the total upgrade - its left unchanged. Not everything has been covered in Linux down to the last bug, which get chance to emerge from the wood in such scenario? Missing libraries and/or wrong configuration scripts that didn't get edited well and need manual tuning. I would insist on getting advice on how to download 11.0 dvd even on a slow flukey network. Even without a specialized download-manager, using the built-in browser downloader start the download and watch it in the /tmp or /home/download folder and whenever it breaks, start a new download and pause it and rename the old stub/part-file which is already long to the new one, un-pause download and it continues like nothing happened. I can get 2-4gb dvd distro in roughly four days on a 50kb/s_av. - 256kb/s_max. connection seven hours daily operation that way.