linux centOs 6.3 GUI freezes with "tpm_tis error"

Question

All of a sudden(1 yr after install), My CentOS 6.3 has frozen after getting into GUI mode. Just after the GRUB boot manager switched to run the OS, I saw the error message "tpm_tis 00:00: tpm_transmit: tpm_send: error -62" before switching to the Graphics mode.

Now after entering the Graphics mode, it displays the list of login usernames for the user to select AND then it freezes. Neither Keyboard nor the mouse is working. It shows a mouse cursor but the mouse cursor doesn't move with the mouse. I'm setup NOT to run sshd/vncserver during startup so don't know how to debug or resolve.

What is the problem and how can I fix it ?

Thank you,

Answer 1

Graphics drivers sound broken. Try Ctr-Alt-F2 or Ctrl-Alt-F3 to see if you can drop out of X. Otherwise, reboot and When the GRUB boot screen comes up, press any key to get to the menu. press a and append a 3 to the end of the kernel line i.e.

 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet

would become

 ro root=/dev/VolGroup00/LogVol00 rhgb quiet 3

hit enter. This should bring you to a text login prompt. You can login there and try to figure out whats wrong with X. If you have recently updated/upgraded the kernel, it may have borked a proprietary driver. You can reinstall the proprietary driver package, or edit your xorg.conf to use the open source drivers, then log in and switch the drivers back to the proprietary ones using the GUI.

If it's unrelated to the drivers,you should still be in a position to install/configure sshd and look at log files to determine the issues. I don't believe the tpm error is relevant.