Black Screen with Cursor on Boot After Switching to Plasma Login Manager

rockingcat · 21 February 2026 15:25

After replacing SDDM with the new Plasma Login Manager on Manjaro Stable, I’m experiencing a black screen with only a cursor on boot.

After rebooting several times from a TTY, the login manager eventually displays correctly, and I can log into either a Wayland or X11 session.
Sometimes, the login manager even appears correctly after simply switching to a TTY and back.

My system is a laptop with a mobile Nvidia GPU and an external monitor.

The plasmalogin service starts without errors:

$ systemctl status plasmalogin

● plasmalogin.service - Plasma Login Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/plasmalogin.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2026-02-21 15:48:18 CET; 3min 5s ago
 Invocation: 4ee1318fa37c4a32829e5c55ab22300d
       Docs: man:plasmalogin(1)
             man:plasmalogin.conf(5)
   Main PID: 1225 (plasmalogin)
      Tasks: 2 (limit: 18632)
     Memory: 31.9M (peak: 33.9M)
        CPU: 35ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/plasmalogin.service
             └─1225 /usr/bin/plasmalogin

Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Socket server starting...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Socket server started.
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Greeter starting...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: [PAM] Starting...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: [PAM] returning.
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: pam_unix(plasmalogin-greeter:session): session opened for user plasmalogin(uid=949) by (uid=0)
Feb 21 15:48:19 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: Starting Wayland user session: "/usr/share/plasmalogin/scripts/wayland-session" "/usr/bin/startplasma-login-wayland"
Feb 21 15:48:19 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Greeter session started successfully
Feb 21 15:48:23 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Message received from greeter: Connect

Full boot log (black screen issue):

$ journalctl -b -u plasmalogin

Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo systemd[1]: Started Plasma Login Manager.
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Initializing...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Starting...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Logind interface found
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Adding new display...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Using VT 1
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Display server started.
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Socket server starting...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Socket server started.
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Greeter starting...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: [PAM] Starting...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: [PAM] returning.
Feb 21 15:48:18 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: pam_unix(plasmalogin-greeter:session): session opened for user plasmalogin(uid=949) by (uid=0)
Feb 21 15:48:19 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1227]: Starting Wayland user session: "/usr/share/plasmalogin/scripts/wayland-session" "/usr/bin/startplasma-login-wayland"
Feb 21 15:48:19 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Greeter session started successfully
Feb 21 15:48:23 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1225]: Message received from greeter: Connect

Full boot log (when login manager worked and I was able to login):

$ journalctl -b -u plasmalogin

Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo systemd[1]: Started Plasma Login Manager.
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Initializing...
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Starting...
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Logind interface found
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Adding new display...
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Using VT 1
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Display server started.
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Socket server starting...
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Socket server started.
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Greeter starting...
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1235]: [PAM] Starting...
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1235]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1235]: [PAM] returning.
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1235]: pam_unix(plasmalogin-greeter:session): session opened for user plasmalogin(uid=949) by (uid=0)
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1235]: Starting Wayland user session: "/usr/share/plasmalogin/scripts/wayland-session" "/usr/bin/startplasma-login-wayland"
Feb 21 15:53:22 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Greeter session started successfully
Feb 21 15:53:24 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Message received from greeter: Connect
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Message received from greeter: Login
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: start auth user true "/usr/bin/startplasma-x11"
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Session "/usr/share/xsessions/plasmax11.desktop" selected, command: "/usr/bin/startplasma-x11" for VT 3 "x11"
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: [PAM] Starting...
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: pam_kwallet5(plasmalogin:auth): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_authenticate
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: [PAM] returning.
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Authentication for user  "user"  successful
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: pam_kwallet5(plasmalogin:setcred): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_setcred
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: pam_unix(plasmalogin:session): session opened for user user(uid=1000) by user(uid=0)
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: pam_kwallet5(plasmalogin:session): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_open_session
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin-helper[1515]: Starting X11 session: "/usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 -noreset -keeptty -novtswitch -verbose 3" "/usr/share/plasmalogin/scripts/Xsession \"/usr/bin/startplasma-x11\""
Feb 21 15:54:46 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Session started true
Feb 21 15:54:51 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Greeter stopping...
Feb 21 15:54:51 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Auth: plasmalogin-helper exited with 255
Feb 21 15:54:51 user-tuxedo plasmalogin[1233]: Greeter stopped. PLASMALOGIN::Auth::HelperExitStatus(255)

Since the new Plasma Login Manager runs on Wayland, I suspect this is related to Nvidia’s generally poor Linux support, especially on Wayland, and may require additional configuration to work reliably.

Additionally, how can I enable startup scripts in plasmalogin ?
I use optimus-manager, which has startup and logout scripts configured for SDDM in /etc/sddm.conf.d/20-optimus-manager.conf. I tried copying this to /etc/plasmalogin.conf.d/, but it didn’t work.

Aragorn · 21 February 2026 15:40

As I understand it, those are (currently) not supported (yet).

plasma-login-manager works differently. It works through logind instead. Depending on what those scripts do, you could try adding them to your Plasma Autostart section.

dmt · 23 February 2026 14:29

I have an RTX 4060 and had no problem at all with PLM.

However it’s possible there may be issues with older cards.

antis81 · 23 February 2026 15:43

The cursor is visible so I think we can exclude driver issues.

Sounds more like the theme is not always loaded correctly. Custom (outdated) SDDM theme maybe?

For me installing plasma6-themes-breath did change the look and there is also a plasma6-themes-breath-migration package. Don’t know how well plasma-login-manager copes with SDDM themes - just using defaults.

Aragorn · 23 February 2026 16:11

It can use the theme of your Plasma session, but I think it defaults to Breeze, which is the KDE-default theme.

Mind you, I have not changed anything to mine, other than the wallpaper.

It’s called plasma6-themes-breath-migration.

antis81 · 24 February 2026 08:31

Thank you - corrected!