After updating, logging in returns to the log-in screen

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1

After that most recent update and a reboot, first the HP info appears, then the GRUB screen, then the log-in. After logging in, the screen goes black for a moment and the log-in appears again. I cannot get past the log-in screen and I do not see the KDE screen and little spinning gear. I have the settings set to not ask for my user name and password when booting and waking from hiberbation.

How can I determine why this is happening? Thank you.

The only unusual thing I can think of on this machine is that, although I’ve always used stable branch, I did switch to unstable a few updates ago but only for a literal few minutes (to look at the packages in that repository because I didn’t know they could be checked without actually switching branches). Anyway, I switched back to stable branch following these instructions.

However, I must have done something wrong because the downgrading part didn’t work. However, as is noted in those instructions, I figured I’d just wait until stable catches up to that state of unstable and the warnings about packages being installed that are newer than the updates could be ignored.

2

Hi @Gary1,

I think you’ll have to take a look at logs, or post them here for others to take a look.

Finding errors for specific boot

journalctl --priority=warning..crit --no-pager --boot=-1

Where:

  • The --priority=warning..err argument limits the output to warnings and errors only;
  • the --no-pager formats the output nicely for use here, on the forum; and
  • the --boot=-1 argument limits the output to log messages from the previous boot. This can be adjusted to -2 for the boot before that, -3 to the boot before that, and so on and so forth.

More:

Note that the above text is partially pre-prepared as general instructions. Please take the time to follow the given links and learn more.

3

Even this might be true for 99% of cases, in some situations this could be an issue. In your case I would try to manjaro-chroot from a LIVE ISO boot and then to either fully downgrade to stable or to fully update to testing branch. Staying on testing branch is not really an issue, it’s rather the “younger hippy brother” of stable and many users use it as their normal operating branch. :wink:

4

Where are these settings? These aren’t settings for SDDM, are they? Anyway to figure out what’s going on i would turn them off to get to a manual approach. Another thing to check is whether going to the tty with Crtl+Alt+F3 then logging in and calling startplasma-wayland works.

Also notice since you have been temporarily on unstable and in case you picked up Plasma 6.4.* then the X11 session was removed.

5

Can you switch to tty from the login window?

Ctrl+Alt+F2 … Enter username/password and can you log in?

ls -la … Who owns the .Xauthority file in the command output? (user or root?)

6

Thank you for all the responses. Before receiving any responses, I tried switching back to unstable branch and updating and downgrading using -Syyuu. The response on unstable was that there were no updates to perform and that the downgrade could not be perfromed because of something to do with Kwin. I tried switching back and forth a couple times (without downgrading) and there was no change. When on unstable branch, I tried to install the plasma-x11-session and kept receiving the message that it could not be found. I checked pacman-mirrors -G and the response was unstable.

I also tried starting wayland from TTY as suggested and there was an error code of 255.

The journalctl warnings scrolled for quite awhile and what I could read had to to do with different items in plasma not starting.

Then, this morning, I tried to run updates again to unstable and there was about 1 GiB of them. After installing them, everything started as usual; except much faster than in the past. I don’t see the spinning KDE gear any longer because it just opens. Also, I could install plasma-x11-session.

I must have been doing something wrong; however, I did the very same things, today, as I did before posting, which were mostly following these instructions for switching branches and [root tip] [How To] Update Manjaro the smart way for updating in TTY.

Also, the settings I referred to for not logging on are in SDDM Behavior. I apologize if that was confusing. That works now also.

I think I will just stay on unstable, now. I do my work on a desktop on stable branch and use this machine (a laptop) for backup and testing; and to install updates first as a precaution.

I suppose (for those answering) this is an unsatisying resolution since I cannot point to the exact issue of what I did wrong. Nonetheless, for me, I am very grateful for this forum and those who take the time to respond; because it can be a very frustrating and sort of lonely feeling trying to figure out why my machine won’t work any longer. I had always wanted to try linux but could never find a version that I felt confident of, until someone on a different forum made a passing comment concerning Manjaro. Now, I’ve come to depend on Manjaro and would not want to change to another OS. So, thank you for all the help and information.

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7

Closed without a solution.