[Bug 1386005] Re: Password not accepted graphical boot for encrypted root system

Thu Dec 3 01:36:06 UTC 2015

I have the same problem - and it's not the first time, either. Even
though I didn't report a bug, before (just worked around it), I agree
with Josh: [K]Ubuntu does not seem to have the QA it should do!

I encounter the same problem again and again on different computers (not
sure anymore, but probably all of them using an NVidia card) for quite a
few versions/years, already (I think the first time was 10.04 or 12.04,
but I'm not sure anymore).

Here's my current scenario:

First the relevant output of lspci:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GK107 [GeForce GT 740] (rev a1)

And here's what I did:
I installed Kubuntu 15.10 from scratch (no upgrade) with full system encryption. On this machine, I don't use LVM (because I have plenty of RAM and don't need swap), but I encountered the same problem before with the automatic "guided partitioning" setting up LVM in an encrypted container. Thus, LVM has obviously no effect - the problem seems to be related to encryption + graphics card only. On this machine, the root fs (/) lies directly in a LUKS container located on sdc3 (as said: no LVM).

After the fresh installation, which uses the nouveau driver, my screen
is entirely blank when booting. Only after I press ESC (grub or plymouth
or whatever is in charge seems to switch from graphical to text mode) I
see a password prompt. When I press ESC again, it switches back to the
graphical mode and I can enter the password there, too (both text +
graphical mode work - but only after pressing ESC at least once).

Unfortunately, my system froze far too often. This problem happens with
Kubuntu 15.04 too (located on sda), but only once in a week or so. With
Kubuntu 15.10 it froze multiple times daily.

Since I suspected the graphics being the cause of the trouble, I wanted
to give the binary nvidia driver a try. Thus, I switched to the
proprietary driver using the KDE graphical driver manager. AFAIK it does
nothing else than installing nvidia-352 and a few other nvidia-*
packages.

I then rebooted and the graphical password prompt appeared - but I could
not enter anything. I still tried to enter my password + press enter
thinking that only the feedback is broken, but no: it does not work at
all. Thus, I booted choosing the recovery mode and then selecting
"resume".

Btw. in contrast to the nouveau driver, ESC has no effect when booting
with the proprietary driver: The system seems completely frozen asking
for the disk password during boot.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1386005

Title:
  Password not accepted graphical boot for encrypted root system

Status in plymouth package in Ubuntu:
  Triaged

Bug description:
  After upgrading to 14.10 from 14.04, I am unable to enter my password for decypting the root filesystem.  The password is echoed in plaintext on the  graphic boot screen and does not show up in the password entry box  on the graphic.   In order to boot the system, I have to boot in recovery mode and enter the password during the text mode boot.  This problem was also described by another user in problem# 1385027.   I did not have a probem in 14.04.   I am using nvidia drivers.   I am set to resolution 1920x1200.  I am running module uvesafb with changes to /etc/default/grub for the module and resolution.  I assume this is a plymouth package bug but am not positive.
  --- 
  ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8
  Architecture: amd64
  CurrentDesktop: Unity
  DefaultPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-21 (189 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
  MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude E6500
  NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
  Package: plymouth 0.9.0-0ubuntu7
  PackageArchitecture: amd64
  PccardctlIdent:
   Socket 0:
     no product info available
  PccardctlStatus:
   Socket 0:
     no card
  ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.13.0-37-generic root=/dev/mapper/hogwarts_vg-root ro recovery nomodeset
  ProcFB: 0 VESA VGA
  ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-3.13.0-37-generic root=/dev/mapper/hogwarts_vg-root ro recovery nomodeset
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-37.64-generic 3.13.11.7
  Tags:  utopic
  TextPlymouth: /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-text/ubuntu-text.plymouth
  Uname: Linux 3.13.0-37-generic x86_64
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to utopic on 2014-10-23 (4 days ago)
  UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
  _MarkForUpload: True
  dmi.bios.date: 12/06/2011
  dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.bios.version: A27
  dmi.board.name: 0PP476
  dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.chassis.type: 8
  dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
  dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrA27:bd12/06/2011:svnDellInc.:pnLatitudeE6500:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0PP476:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
  dmi.product.name: Latitude E6500
  dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

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