Blank Terminal?

Question

I can open the terminal on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with Ctrl+Alt+T, but it's completely blank and there appears to be no way to input anything.

I tried typing just in case there was something hidden, but it's as though the font is black on black. I've also tried changing font colours, but it didn't do anything.

How do I get to see what I'm doing (or what I did do that screw it up)?

score 4 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 08 '23 at 18:17

4

For me the problem was a previous command that had crashed. Ctrl+C broke out of it for me. Perhaps something everybody knows, but not me until now!

edited Feb 08 '23 at 18:17

BeastOfCaerbannog

16,703

answered May 21 '14 at 16:08

S..

393

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 24 '18 at 21:38

3

I had the same problem. I went to terminal Preferences by right clicking on the terminal and choosing the Preferences option. Then I went to the Command tab and unchecked Run a custom command instead of my shell.

edited Jul 24 '18 at 21:38

wjandrea

14,504

answered Jul 24 '18 at 19:39

user853129

31

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 16 '13 at 04:05

3

Open virtual terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1.Then run the following commands to reinstall gnome-terminal,

sudo apt-get install --reinstall gnome-terminal

To return to GUI press Ctrl+Alt+F7

edited Nov 16 '13 at 04:05

sourav c.

46,120

answered Nov 16 '13 at 02:24

Avinash Raj

80,446

score 3 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 24 '18 at 21:39

It can be possible because of previous command crashed or not run successfully, and terminal has been closed OR forcefully closed. FATAL error can also play role for such scenario. You can try: Ctrl+c.

OR You can reinstall gnome-terminal by using virtual terminal.

OR Backup your current .bashrc file:

cp ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrc.bak

Copy the skeleton .bashrc file over yours:

cp /etc/skel/.bashrc ~/

Afterwards, load the new one:

source ~/.bashrc

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited Feb 08 '23 at 18:19

1

From OP's comment:

I figured it out (sort of). Opened terminal, went to Edit, Profile Preferences, Color, un-checked Use colors from system theme, changed font colour to Yellow and background colour to Black.

Strange thing though, I have no idea how everything got switched to 'grey' yet came out as black on black!

edited Feb 08 '23 at 18:19

BeastOfCaerbannog

16,703

answered Jul 24 '18 at 21:41

wjandrea

14,504

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 31 '24 at 06:06

Something else to check I had the same issue using zsh as my shell. My .zshrc file calls .zsh_aliases where I set my aliases to move from machine to machine. When I was tiding up the file last night left a cat command when I deleted the line eg:

alias something = 'command1'
cat
alias something-else = 'command2'

This in-effect left the terminal waiting for input and not loading. Hence Ctrl+c killed the cat command and showed the prompt.

Blank Terminal?

6 Answers6