How do I troubleshoot boot problems when stuck at the Ubuntu splash screen?

Question

I was tweaking some settings on my Ubuntu 12.04 install. Specifically I was altering the default color scheme of the terminal, following these instructions
Now whenever I boot Ubuntu, I get stuck in the purple screen that says "Ubuntu" with the moving dots. If I hit ENTER Ubuntu booting continues.
I'm not asking about solving my specific problem (which is definitely caused my be doing weird things) instead I'm asking how would I go about digging into what's going on at boot? What logs should I look at? What kind of thing should I look for? How would I troubleshoot this issue? I would like to "learn how to fish" and go figure out what is probably a stupid issue.
I tried the boot repair utility, however that does not appear to do the trick. Boot repair appears to be focussed more on GRUB, which is functioning fine.

gravity · Answer 1 · 2013-06-10 18:19:57Z

There's a few things you can try. First, if I were you, I'd like to know what's happening in the background (booting in) that causes you to have to hit Enter to get it to continue on.
Try editing your GRUB load manually, so you can see what's happening during the boot and provide the error/issue that's actually happening in more detail. In a terminal window, run:

gksudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Find this line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

and change it to:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""

Leave anything else within the quotes as-is, but remove the quiet splash portion.
Then, do, in terminal:

sudo update-grub

Then, finally just reboot. Now.. see all the loading data, and let us know what the actual problem is.

Marijn · Accepted Answer · 2013-10-01 22:18:36Z

i found a solution here:http://www.marshut.com/wrrts/repo-release-1-12-4.html
[quote] Sorry, I realized today that we didn't upload the newest version of the launcher. I'll update the documentation. For the meantime, please use:
curl http://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/git-repo-downloads/repo > ~/bin/repo chmod a+x ~/bin/repo
sha1 e197cb48ff4ddda4d11f23940d316e323b29671c
If verification errors persist, you can blow away (or move) your ~/.repoconfig dir to ensure the new public keys are imported.
Sorry for the trouble everyone! [/quote]

Seconding (thirding?) this. Replaced the installed version (and B2G version) of repo with this and things are back up and running.

user1130414 · Answer 3 · 2012-11-29 19:41:45Z

It's kind of difficult to find documentation about this, so I will collect here all information I have found. If you are in a rush or just don't like to read, jump to the How to get data from a SMS section.

content://mms-sms/conversations

This is the URI of the Mms and SMS provider... which allows us to query the MMS and SMS databases at the same time, and mix them in a single thread (which are called conversations).
Why is it important the content://mms-sms/conversations uri? Well, that's the standard way of getting MMS and SMS messages; for instance, when you receive a SMS and click on the notification bar, it will send a broadcast intent like this: content://mms-sms/conversations/XXX, where XXX is the id of the conversation.

Get a list of all conversations

The only thing you have to do is to query the content://mms-sms/conversations Uri:

ContentResolver contentResolver = getContentResolver();
final String[] projection = new String[]{"*"};
Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://mms-sms/conversations/");
Cursor query = contentResolver.query(uri, projection, null, null, null);

Note: usually, when you call query and want to return all columns you can pass null as the projection parameter. However, you cannot do that with this provider, so that's why I'm using *.
Now you can loop through the Cursor as usual. These are the more important columns you would want to use:

_id is the ID of the message. Captain obvious to the rescue? Not really. This ID can be used to retrieve detailed information using either content://sms or content://mms.
date no explanation needed.
thread_id is the ID of the conversation
body The content of the last SMS on this conversation. If it's an MMS, even if it has a text part, this will be null.

Note: if you query content://mms-sms/conversations it will return a list of different conversations whose _id is the last SMS or MMS in each conversation. If you query content://mms-sms/conversations/xxx it will return each SMS and/or MMS on the conversation whose ID is xxx.

How to differentiate between SMS and MMS

Usually, you will want to know which type of message you are handling. Documentation says:

A virtual column, MmsSms.TYPE_DISCRIMINATOR_COLUMN, may be requested in the projection for a query. Its value is either "mms" or "sms", depending on whether the message represented by the row is an MMS message or an SMS message, respectively.

I think it's referring to this variable... however I have not been able to make it work. If you have please tell me how or edit this post.
So far this is what I have done and it seems to work but there must be better ways:

ContentResolver contentResolver = getContentResolver();
final String[] projection = new String[]{"_id", "ct_t"};
Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://mms-sms/conversations/");
Cursor query = contentResolver.query(uri, projection, null, null, null);
if (query.moveToFirst()) {
    do {
        String string = query.getString(query.getColumnIndex("ct_t"));
        if ("application/vnd.wap.multipart.related".equals(string)) {
            // it's MMS
        } else {
            // it's SMS
        }
    } while (query.moveToNext());
}

How to get data from a SMS

So you have the ID of the SMS, then the only thing you have to do is:

String selection = "_id = "+id;
Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://sms");
Cursor cursor = contentResolver.query(uri, null, selection, null, null);
String phone = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("address"));
int type = cursor.getInt(cursor.getColumnIndex("type"));// 2 = sent, etc.
String date = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("date"));
String body = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("body"));

How to get data from a MMS data?

MMSs are a little bit different. They can be built with different parts (text, audio, images, etc.); so here will see how to retrieve each kind of data separately.
So let's guess we have the MMS id in the mmsId variable. We can get detailed information about this MMS by using the content://mms/ provider:

Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://mms/");
String selection = "_id = " + mmsId;
Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(uri, null, selection, null, null);

However, the only interesting column is read which is 1 if the message has already been read.

How to get text content from MMS

Here we have to use content://mms/part... for instance:

String selectionPart = "mid=" + mmsId;
Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://mms/part");
Cursor cursor = getContentResolver().query(uri, null,
    selectionPart, null, null);
if (cursor.moveToFirst()) {
    do {
        String partId = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("_id"));
        String type = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("ct"));
        if ("text/plain".equals(type)) {
            String data = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("_data"));
            String body;
            if (data != null) {
                // implementation of this method below
                body = getMmsText(partId);
            } else {
                body = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("text"));
            }
        }
    } while (cursor.moveToNext());
}

It could contain different parts of text... but usually it'd be only one. So if you want to remove the loop it will work most of the times. This is how the getMmsText method looks like:

private String getMmsText(String id) {
    Uri partURI = Uri.parse("content://mms/part/" + id);
    InputStream is = null;
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    try {
        is = getContentResolver().openInputStream(partURI);
        if (is != null) {
            InputStreamReader isr = new InputStreamReader(is, "UTF-8");
            BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(isr);
            String temp = reader.readLine();
            while (temp != null) {
                sb.append(temp);
                temp = reader.readLine();
            }
        }
    } catch (IOException e) {}
    finally {
        if (is != null) {
            try {
                is.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {}
        }
    }
    return sb.toString();
}

How to get image from MMS

It's the same than getting the text part... the only difference is that you will be looking for a different mime-type:

String selectionPart = "mid=" + mmsId;
Uri uri = Uri.parse("content://mms/part");
Cursor cPart = getContentResolver().query(uri, null,
    selectionPart, null, null);
if (cPart.moveToFirst()) {
    do {
        String partId = cPart.getString(cPart.getColumnIndex("_id"));
        String type = cPart.getString(cPart.getColumnIndex("ct"));
        if ("image/jpeg".equals(type) || "image/bmp".equals(type) ||
                "image/gif".equals(type) || "image/jpg".equals(type) ||
                "image/png".equals(type)) {
            Bitmap bitmap = getMmsImage(partId);
        }
    } while (cPart.moveToNext());
}

This is how the getMmsImage method looks like:

private Bitmap getMmsImage(String _id) {
    Uri partURI = Uri.parse("content://mms/part/" + _id);
    InputStream is = null;
    Bitmap bitmap = null;
    try {
        is = getContentResolver().openInputStream(partURI);
        bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(is);
    } catch (IOException e) {}
    finally {
        if (is != null) {
            try {
                is.close();
            } catch (IOException e) {}
        }
    }
    return bitmap;
}

How to get the sender address

You will need to use the content://mms/xxx/addr provider, where xxx is the id of the MMS:

private String getAddressNumber(int id) {
    String selectionAdd = new String("msg_id=" + id);
    String uriStr = MessageFormat.format("content://mms/{0}/addr", id);
    Uri uriAddress = Uri.parse(uriStr);
    Cursor cAdd = getContentResolver().query(uriAddress, null,
        selectionAdd, null, null);
    String name = null;
    if (cAdd.moveToFirst()) {
        do {
            String number = cAdd.getString(cAdd.getColumnIndex("address"));
            if (number != null) {
                try {
                    Long.parseLong(number.replace("-", ""));
                    name = number;
                } catch (NumberFormatException nfe) {
                    if (name == null) {
                        name = number;
                    }
                }
            }
        } while (cAdd.moveToNext());
    }
    if (cAdd != null) {
        cAdd.close();
    }
    return name;
}

Final thoughts

Can't understand why Google, with those thousands of millions of dollars, don't pay a student or someone else to document this API. You have to check the source code to know how it works and, which is worse, they don't make public those constants used in the columns of the database, so we have to write them manually.
For other kind of data inside an MMS you can apply the same idea learned above... it's just a matter of knowing the mime-type.

Conserning content://mms-sms/conversations. This url contains list with all threads. But not separate messages (sms or mms). So there is no sense to get to know sms or mms it is while it is none of them.
would there be a reason why all my MMS mime types come back as application/smil?
Justin, because MMS are stored in database as slideshow using SMIL.
@Cristian hi, i am the one who ask you in twitter. i want to get data from MMS as List so i found this tutorial,it takes ur code and add listview but when i run it. it did not show me anything
You better create a question and share your code with us. How can we see what you are doing wrong if we do not know your code?

Kenneth Evans · Answer 4 · 2012-10-12 19:19:14Z

The answer by Christian is excellent. However, the method for getting the sender's address did not work for me. The Long.parseLong statement doesn't do anything except possibly throw an exception and new String(...) ?.
On my device the cursor count is 2 or more. The first typically has a "type" of 137 and the others have a "type" of 151. I cannot find where this is documented, but one can deduce 137 is "from" and 151 is "to". Thus, if I run the method as is, I do not get an exception, and it returns the last row, which is a recipient and only one of several in many cases.
Also AFAICT the selection is not necessary as all the rows have the same msg_id. However, it doesn't hurt.
This is what works for me to get the sender's address:

public static String getMMSAddress(Context context, String id) {
    String addrSelection = "type=137 AND msg_id=" + id;
    String uriStr = MessageFormat.format("content://mms/{0}/addr", id);
    Uri uriAddress = Uri.parse(uriStr);
    String[] columns = { "address" };
    Cursor cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(uriAddress, columns,
            addrSelection, null, null);
    String address = "";
    String val;
    if (cursor.moveToFirst()) {
        do {
            val = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("address"));
            if (val != null) {
                address = val;
                // Use the first one found if more than one
                break;
            }
        } while (cursor.moveToNext());
    }
    if (cursor != null) {
        cursor.close();
    }
    // return address.replaceAll("[^0-9]", "");
    return address;
}

I didn't care about whether it is all numeric, but I included a way to eliminate everything but numerals as a comment if that is desired. It can easily be modified to return all the recipients, as well.
I assume it worked for him. It looks like it would give the right answer if the exception occurred on the first row.

I wouldn't try to call parseLong on the contact_id field; treat it as a string. In fact, it's quite possible that it could be an email address or something, in the case of email-to-mms gateways.

Asahi · Answer 5 · 2010-06-16 19:07:14Z

up vote1down vote

Take a look at this. Worked well for me.

answered Jun 16 '10 at 19:07

Asahi
4,58231945

	what about application/smil type MMS messages? – toobsco42 Jul 17 '12 at 7:42
	I am doing something similar HERE! stackoverflow.com/questions/11556633/… – toobsco42 Jul 19 '12 at 8:22

Hassan Nabil · Answer 6 · 2013-02-13 15:09:55Z

The answer given above for getting the getMMSAddress() should not contain the loop while (cursor.moveToNext());. It should only extract the address from the first element in the cursor. For some reason that is unknown to me, this cursor has more than one record. The first one contains the Sender's address. The other elements of the cursor beyond the first one, contain the receiver's address. Thus the code as is return the receivers address and not the sender address.
This has been very helpful for cracking open the contents of an MMS.

Gustav · Answer 7 · 2013-04-18 12:08:01Z

I had to make some modifications in order to get this to work for me.

When I retrieve the cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("type")) from the mms-sms/conversations content, ("content://mms-sms/conversations/") I test the value of the "type" field for null. If the variable is null - i.e.

String otype = c.getString(c.getColumnIndex("type"));
if(otype != null) {
    //this is an sms - handle it...

the message is an SMS, else it is an MMS. For MMS's you have to test for both mime types as follows:-

if (("application/vnd.wap.multipart.related".equalsIgnoreCase(msg_type)
    ||"application/vnd.wap.multipart.mixed".equalsIgnoreCase(msg_type))
    && !id.equalsIgnoreCase(lastMMSID)) {
         //this is a MMS - handle it...

When you use a ContentObserver to monitor the message content for changes, it fires several notifications for the same message. I use a static variable - in my case lastMMSID - to keep track of the message.
This code works well to retrieve the content of both Inbound and Outbound messages. It is important to iterate through all the records that are returned by the "content://mms/part/" uri in order to get to the content - text and/or attachments - of the MMS.
The only way that I could find that works pretty well to differentiate between inbound and outbound MMS's, is to test the null status of the "m_id" field of the mms-sms/conversations content.
```
String m_id = c.getString(c.getColumnIndex("m_id"));
String mDirection = m_id == null? "OUT": "IN";
```

A final thought on how to get the Address Field. For some reason the Address Content does not like to be queried with a {" * "} parameter, but this works:-

final String[] projection = new String[] {"address", "contact_id", "charset", "type"};

If it is an outbound message, the "type" to look for will be 151. For an inbound message, the "type" will be 137. A fully functional piece of code will look something like this:-

private String getANumber(int id) {
    String add = "";
    final String[] projection = new String[] {"address","contact_id","charset","type"};
    final String selection = "type=137 or type=151"; // PduHeaders
    Uri.Builder builder = Uri.parse("content://mms").buildUpon();
    builder.appendPath(String.valueOf(id)).appendPath("addr");

    Cursor cursor = context.getContentResolver().query(
        builder.build(),
        projection,
        selection,
        null, null);

if (cursor.moveToFirst()) {
          do {
              String add = cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("address"));
              String type: cursor.getString(cursor.getColumnIndex("type"));
          } while(cursor.moveToNext());
      }
      // Outbound messages address type=137 and the value will be 'insert-address-token'
      // Outbound messages address type=151 and the value will be the address
      // Additional checking can be done here to return the correct address.
      return add;
}

To all the brave warriors who have gone before me in this post - I thank thee from the bottom of my heart!

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