[Bug 1758512] [NEW] No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic behaviour when user logged in.

[asala]

Public bug reported:

As of today's 18.04 version, on a dell xps-13 (the old i7-4500U one), to reproduce:
- boot Ubuntu
- Press Ctrl+Alt+F2 (or F3 or...)

Expected behaviour: virtual console should appear with login prompt.
Actual behaviour: nothing happens.

When a user is logged in, Ctrl+Alt+F3 switches to terminal tty3...
However, hitting first Ctrl+Alt+F1 and, subsequently, hitting
Ctrl+Alt+F3 does not show tty3, and remains at the graphical login
screen but keyboard and mouse are unresponsive until either Ctrl+Alt+F1
or Ctrl+Alt+F? are pressed, being ? the virtual terminal the ubuntu
session is running at.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: gdm3 3.27.92-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-12.13-generic 4.15.7
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-12-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.8-0ubuntu10
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sat Mar 24 10:11:26 2018
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-05-05 (1418 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
ProcEnviron:
TERM=xterm-256color
PATH=(custom, no user)
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
LANG=es_ES.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gdm3
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-03-22 (1 days ago)

** Affects: gdm3 (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New


** Tags: amd64 apport-bug bionic
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[Daniel van Vugt]

gdm might have Fn lock turned off.

Please try this instead: Ctrl+Fn+Alt+F3

** Changed in: gdm3 (Ubuntu)
Status: New => Incomplete
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[asala]

The "Fn" trick did not succeed. The keystrokes with "Fn" did not get
recognised, these without Fn (i.e., the standard ones) did as shown
below.

More info (after a dist-upgrade so last packages are in place) about
behaviour today:

1. Boot until gdm graphical login appears.
2. Hit Ctrl+Alt+F?. Nothing happens. Kept at graphical login on virtual terminal 1.
3. Log in and start a graphical X session on any user.
4. Hit Ctrl+Alt+F?. Consoles show as required.
5. Hit Ctrl+Alt+Fxxx to return to the virtual terminal holding the X session. Log out of the graphical X session.
6. Hit Ctrl+Alt+F3. Screen keeps being that of gdm (now mouse cursor gets frozen), but the keystroke Ctrl+Alt+F3 IS recognised... and also subsequent ones: if I then type username and password, I see nothing but gdm on screen but, ...
7. Come back to tty1's gdm graphical login and log in to an X session as any user.
8. Hit again Ctrl+Alt+F3. Voilà: the invisible login at step 6 did actually succeed... the shell propmt is there, waiting for further input.

*For your information, there is also unexpected behaviour on virtual
terminal switching in my main computer with 17.10 and Nvidia drivers
but, well, this is not the place to report 17.10 bugs and mess up
things.

So, I wonder if it is a gdm issue or any on graphics
drivers/framebuffers... whatever... I'm not a developer so, well, my
capabilities to diagnose/debug are limited.
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[Daniel van Vugt]

** Changed in: gdm3 (Ubuntu)
Status: Incomplete => New
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
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[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

** Changed in: gdm3 (Ubuntu)
Status: New => Confirmed
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[Jeremy Bicha]

What graphics drivers are you using?
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[Daniel van Vugt]

Note that Ctrl+Alt+Fn is not a system-wide keyboard shortcut. There's no
such thing.

It has to be interpreted by whatever shell/GUI is on screen at the time.
So that's not a driver problem but a shell problem. Although the shell
could always be understanding the keys and failing to switch, so that
could then be a driver bug :)

That said, I can't reproduce this bug in the final 18.04 release right
now. Can anyone?

** Changed in: gdm3 (Ubuntu)
Status: Confirmed => Incomplete
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[asala]

I am on Intel graphics (xps13 i7-4500U HD4400).

I can still reproduce it... basically, at boot, Ctr+Alt+Fn do nothing
(behaviour steps 1 and 2 in #3). However, once you start a user's X
session the shortcut "activates"... if an X session is open, things go
as well (step 4). However, if such a session is closed, the shortcut is
still active (and the virtual console recognises keyboard commands) but
the screen does not show it (steps 6 to 8).
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[asala]

Further info: I updated my main computer to 18.04. That one has Nvidia
graphics (updated to the latest nvidia-390 from PPA). Behaviour is
different, but buggy, too, as follows:

1. boot
2. Hit ctrl+alt+f3. Console shows. Log in. exit (log out).
Expected behaviour: return to gdm's graphical login screen with responsive keyboard and mouse.
Actual behaviour: the gdm's screen appears but keyboard and mouse are unresponsive...
3. Hit ctrl+alt+f1.
Expected behaviour: even if ttt3's screen seems corrupted, hopefully ctrl+alt+f1 would return to gdm's graphical login screen with responsive keyboard and mouse on tty1.
Actual behaviour: screen blanks. Computer is unrecoverable from keyboard and mouse. Only REISUB can reboot it again (alternatively, accessing it via SSH shows that the OS is still alive and well, but graphics are messed up).

In summary, both Intel and Nvidia behaviours, in two different
computers, seem buggy, although the actual behaviour is slightly
different for each case.

A bold conjecture: does GDM use Wayland or X? Is this caused by any
Wayland/X switching?
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[Daniel van Vugt]

gdm3 uses Wayland by default.
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[Daniel van Vugt]

** Changed in: gdm3 (Ubuntu)
Status: Incomplete => New
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[Daniel van Vugt]

Is your Intel machine also running Ubuntu 18.04?
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[asala]

Yes, both are on 18.04.

I wonder why I can reproduce it on three computers with two ubuntu
versions, with both Nvidia and Intel and you cannot (post #6)... Just in
case it might matter, I have other desktop environments (Plasma, xfce)
also installed, but my session manager is set to gdm.

Additional info: I have a third computer which is still on 17.10 with
Nvidia graphics, and it also sports the same kind of buggy behaviour as
my post #8, so it seems this might be inherited from at least one prior
version. I reported the bug and assigned it to gdm because, well, when
the computer is apparently dead (step 3 in #8), if you SSH and do sudo
pkill gdm, then it dies, respawns and things go back to normal, no need
to reboot via REISUB when another computer is at hand.
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

To manage notifications about this bug go to:
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[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

** Changed in: gdm3 (Ubuntu)
Status: New => Confirmed
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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[Samuel Bühner]

I get this bug if I uncoment WaylandEnable=false in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf .
If I use gdm3 with Wayland I get #1764643 instead.
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Title:
No virtual terminals (CTRL+ALT+F?) when no user logged in; erratic
behaviour when user logged in.

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