Fedora 16: unable to switch to console

[THEcreationist]

On my fedora 16 system, once I press Ctrl+Alt+F2, the screen goes black for a long time but no terminal appears. When I press Alt+F1 it instantly switches back to GUI mode.

The same thing happens when I execute init 3 from the terminal, the screen goes black but nothing happens for a long time.

However, if I set the default runlevel to 3, it successfully boots into terminal mode. The problems seems to be in switching from GUI to terminal mode.

[PabloTwo]

You now use the systemctl command from the command line to change runlevels.

[Gareth Jones]

Do any other virtual consoles have terminals on them (i.e. try Ctrl+Alt+F3-F6)?

[george_toolan]

Which kernel are you using?

I just noticed something weird: the agettys are only started when you switch to that console, but on a reasonable fast system they should appear almost instantaneously.

ps aux | grep -i getty

[RupertPupkin]

Make sure your /etc/sysconfig/init file has this line uncommented:

ACTIVE_CONSOLES=/dev/tty[1-6]

If you do end up changing that file then you'll probably have to reboot for it to take effect.
If that doesn't fix it, then post the output of this command:

ls -l /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/

I had a problem in F15 where my display manager was causing plymouth-quit.service to not quit, which prevented virtual consoles from being created. My solution was to kill plymouth: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=264526
That may not be your problem, but you could try it if nothing else works.

[THEcreationist]

I tried changing runlevel using systemctl but with no success. None of the virtual consoles seem to load.

The kernel is 3.4.2-1.fc16.i686.

All my agettys seem to be started already:

$ ps aux | grep -i getty
root      1098  0.0  0.0   4280   732 tty3     Ss+  10:08   0:00 /sbin/agetty tty3 38400
root      1101  0.0  0.0   4280   728 tty5     Ss+  10:08   0:00 /sbin/agetty tty5 38400
root      1102  0.0  0.0   4280   728 tty6     Ss+  10:08   0:00 /sbin/agetty tty6 38400
root      1103  0.0  0.0   4280   728 tty4     Ss+  10:08   0:00 /sbin/agetty tty4 38400
root      2166  0.0  0.0   4280   728 tty2     Ss+  10:21   0:00 /sbin/agetty tty2 38400
ashu      2212  0.0  0.0   4596   840 pts/0    S+   10:27   0:00 grep --color=auto -i getty

---------- Post added at 10:31 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:28 AM ----------

Originally Posted by RupertPupkin

Make sure your /etc/sysconfig/init file has this line uncommented:

ACTIVE_CONSOLES=/dev/tty[1-6]

Yes the line if already uncommented.

If that doesn't fix it, then post the output of this command:

ls -l /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/

I had a problem in F15 where my display manager was causing plymouth-quit.service to not quit, which prevented virtual consoles from being created. My solution was to kill plymouth: http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=264526
That may not be your problem, but you could try it if nothing else works.

There is no plymouth process running. Here is the output of the command:

$ ls -l /etc/systemd/system/getty.target.wants/
total 0
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Oct 22  2010 getty@tty1.service -> /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Oct 22  2010 getty@tty2.service -> /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Oct 22  2010 getty@tty3.service -> /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Oct 22  2010 getty@tty4.service -> /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Oct 22  2010 getty@tty5.service -> /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root 34 Oct 22  2010 getty@tty6.service -> /lib/systemd/system/getty@.service