Rpi3: Black screen and cursor?

[Wh1t3tr4sh]

Hello genuis, i have a raspberry pi 3 with the kali arm image. I have updated and upgraded everything. Im using a tv as monitor. I have an rii keyboard+air mouse

Yesterday i updated kali with apt-get update/upgrade. Everything worked fine until i rebooted this morning and only had a black screen and a cursor. I seem to be able to log in since my cursor blinks for a brief moment after i enter root/passwd. After making pictures of the highlighted text in the log file i entered startx in an attempt to start the gui which worked only to show me that network-manager was all fucked up trying to restart the service didnt work. There also appeared 3new unmounted folders on my desktop named sys, file system &(forgot last one).

How do i fix it? Has anybody else expierenced this problem? What causes it?

Thanks
-aspiring pentester

[paran0id]

Very same here - twice. Two times with a fresh installation.

[dfns]

the same issue here on odroid c2.

[re4son]

Go to post #8 for a better solution


I haven't quite found the culprit yet but here's a workaround for the time being:

Disable boot into GUI (if you are running re4son's kernel):

./re4son-pi-tft-setup -b cli

Disable boot into GUI (manual):

sudo systemctl set-default multi-user.target

Login and "startx" manually.

Works like a charm.

Once the problem is fixed, just change it back via:

./re4son-pi-tft-setup -b gui

or

sudo systemctl set-default graphical.target

I hope that helps,
Re4son

[ekreger]

Same problem here. New to Linux kernel, please, provide more details on how to stop automatic boot in in GUI and how then manually start GUI.

[re4son]

Hi ekreger,

Go to post #8 for a better solution

Either ssh to your pi or press ctrl+alt+f1 to logon via command line interface and then issue the following command:

systemctl set-default multi-user.target

Reboot; you should see the command line logon screen.

Logon and type:

startx

That should do the trick.

To switch back to gui, just type:

systemctl set-default graphical.target

Have fun,
Re4son

[ekreger]

Thank you, really appreciated.

[re4son]

UPDATE 22/09/2016:
The root cause has been eliminated. Just run apt-get update after 21/09/2016 and the problem should disappear.
If not, continue reading:

SOLUTION:

lightdm is buggered after the latest update.

You can replace it with SLiM for now.
Just run:

sudo apt-get install slim

This will install it and prompt you to select the new display manager.
Just select “slim” and you are all set.

Once the bug is fixed you can switch back via:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure slim

and select “lightdm”

Hope that helps,
Re4son

[Wh1t3tr4sh]

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Your solution worked great!

[StygianAgenda]

@Re4son Thanks man! This problem had been driving me up the frakkin' wall over the last several days while I've been trying to prep 2 instances of Kali for a pentest, 1 running from a USB hard drive, the other running from a VMWare-ESXi VM. In both cases, I encountered the same problem after performing a dist-upgrade, whether from the CLI or via Synaptic (personal preference for mass-package-installation).

I figured it had something to do with LightDM because everytime I'd install it, the login manager would go belly-up, giving me the black-screen everyone else has reported. I've worked with LightDM a lot over the past 5 years or so, so I tried a ton of different conf-file options before simply resigning to using GDM (which has terrible performance within a VM, prior to any VMWare client extensions being installed).

Before today, I'd seen SLiM only once before, when I was teaching myself FreeBSD. At that time, I had FreeBSD setup on VM, and I must say, I really liked SLiM. It's simple, but good... much better than the now ancient XDM. If it weren't for the occasional system that I require xrdp+tightvnc+xinetd+lightdm-configured-with-XDMCP-support, I'd probably stick with SLiM exclusively. But I support a Linux based terminal server for a group of developers working for one of our agencies, and while they don't often need it, preferring to use the CLI over SSH, the sysadmin that I trained to take over when I left that division has apparently needed it multiple times for managing the QLogic software we use for controlling the Fiber Channel connection to our SAN.

Anyways, I'll be giving SLiM a lot more mileage I think.

Thanks for helping everyone out with your answers. It's most appreciated.

[Stoned Grizzly]

@re4son thanks for the fix, I ran into this after updating my pi to 4.1.19-V7 and your solution worked like a charm. Now if I can get a driver this fake chinese reatek 2870 chipset I'll have wireless working

[overrice]

SOLUTION:

lightdm is buggered after the latest update.

You can replace it with SLiM for now.
Just run:

sudo apt-get install slim

This will install it and prompt you to select the new display manager.
Just select “slim” and you are all set.

Once the bug is fixed you can switch back via:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure slim

and select “lightdm”

Hope that helps,
Re4son

Thank you, re4son. That worked for me.