I have a clean Linux Mint 12 install on a Lenovo R61i laptop. I have multiple users configured - one for myself, my wife, and my daughter. My account is the only sudoer.
Two or three times a week the machine "crashes" when switching users, seemingly only when both users are already logged in. Once the user has requested a switch, typed their password, and hit enter, they are presented with a black screen with a flashing white cursor in the top-left. No matter how long one waits, this screen does not change. The only way I've found out of this situation is to hold down the power button until the machine shuts off, then start her up again.
I should point out that we switch users often, most of the time without any issue at all. So it's difficult to reproduce.
I've had a search around but haven't been able to determine whether this is a known issue or not. Can anyone offer any advice on how to rectify this?
UPDATE: I just had the "crash" again, and tried various key combinations to see if I could get any response whatsoever. Turns out that Ctrl+Alt+Del briefly printed out some standard shutdown messages (too fast for me to relay, I'm afraid) and then restarted the machine.
Still eager for a solution to this issue.
/var/log
directory? I'm guessing the most important files to watch would be/var/log/messages
and/or/var/log/syslog
but there may be others relevant to debug this./var/log/Xorg.1.log
, and thatCtrl
+Alt
+F7
might work to get you back to the original desktop, orCtrl
+Alt
+F1
to get to a text consolelogin:
prompt.