Cannot boot into GUI anymore after updating

nike2020 · 14 September 2020 02:40

Hello, having some problems here and could really use help!

I ran a sudo pacman -Syu cifs-utils. This upgraded the system packages normally and installed cifs-utils. I saw the message that warned me that system hadn’t been rebooted in some time and would need a reboot to use new kernal, so I restarted. Since then I cannot boot up, just get a blank screen.

At first I thought this was a an EFI issue so tried to follow the guide for GRUB recovery. however while I was using chroot I changed the default target to rescue and then multi-user.target. These both were able to boot up successfully, so I’m not sure if its an EFI problem anymore. Here’s some output for you guys:-

 [manjaro /]# parted -l
Model: ATA HGST HTS721010A9 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 1000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    File system  Name                  Flags
 1      1049kB  1000GB  1000GB  ext4         Basic data partition


Model: Kingston DataTraveler 3.0 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sdb: 15.5GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 2      3120MB  3124MB  4194kB  primary               esp


Model: SAMSUNG MZVPV512HDGL-00000 (nvme)
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 512GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End    Size    File system     Name  Flags
 1      2097kB  317MB  315MB   fat32                 boot, esp
 2      317MB   503GB  502GB   ext4
 3      503GB   512GB  9449MB  linux-swap(v1)        swap

 [manjaro /]# efibootmgr -v

BootCurrent: 0008
Timeout: 1 seconds
BootOrder: 0005,0004,0003,0007,0008,0002,0000,0001
Boot0000* Windows Boot Manager  VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)WINDOWS.........x...B.C.D.O.B.J.E.C.T.=.{.9.d.e.a.8.6.2.c.-.5.c.d.d.-.4.e.7.0.-.a.c.c.1.-.f.3.2.b.3.4.4.d.4.7.9.5.}...3................
Boot0001* ubuntu        VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)
Boot0002* debian        VenHw(99e275e7-75a0-4b37-a2e6-c5385e6c00cb)
Boot0003* CD/DVD Drive  BBS(CDROM,,0x0)..GO..NO........o.M.A.T.S.H.I.T.A.B.D.-.C.M.B. .U.J.1.7.2. .S....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.Q.W.6.9. . .0.2.4.3.3.8. . . . . . . . ........BO
Boot0004* Hard Drive    BBS(HD,,0x0)..GO..NO..........S.A.M.S.U.N.G. .M.Z.V.P.V.5.1.2.H.D.G.L.-.0.0.0.0.0....................A.......................................J..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.S.A.M.S.U.N.G. .M.Z.V.P.V.5.1.2.H.D.G.L.-.0.0.0.0.0........BO..NO........o.H.G.S.T. .H.T.S.7.2.1.0.1.0.A.9.E.6.3.0....................A...........................>..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L. . . . . . .R.J.0.1.4.0.M.4.U.0.4.R.N.N........BO..NO........s.K.i.n.g.s.t.o.n.D.a.t.a.T.r.a.v.e.l.e.r. .3...0....................A.......................F..Gd-.;.A..MQ..L.6.0.A.4.4.C.4.1.3.8.C.C.F.3.6.1.A.9.4.A.1.0.9.D........BO
Boot0005* manjaro       HD(1,GPT,e1b714db-c479-774e-a26c-c0b62d944ed4,0x1000,0x96000)/File(\EFI\manjaro\grubx64.efi)
Boot0007* UEFI OS       HD(1,GPT,e1b714db-c479-774e-a26c-c0b62d944ed4,0x1000,0x96000)/File(\EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI)..BO
Boot0008* UEFI: KingstonDataTraveler 3.0, Partition 1   PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x14,0x0)/USB(17,0)/HD(1,MBR,0x0,0x5cf8f0,0x2000)..BO

[manjaro /]# lsblk -f
NAME        FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINT
loop0                                              
loop1                                              
loop2                                              
loop3                                              
sda                                                
`-sda1                                             
sdb                                                
|-sdb1                                             
`-sdb2                                             
sr0                                                
nvme0n1                                            
|-nvme0n1p1                          299.2M     0% /boot/efi
|-nvme0n1p2                          416.3G     4% /

System:    Kernel: 5.8.6-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.8-x86_64 root=UUID=a91893a0-d664-4cda-abed-da2a5fc20194 rw quiet 
           apparmor=1 security=apparmor resume=UUID=1765fb8d-4ec9-4484-b80f-b9eb5654e7f3 udev.log_priority=3 
           Console: tty 1 Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: G752VY v: 1.0 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: G752VY v: 1.0 serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends v: G752VY.307 date: 04/25/2019 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 64.7 Wh condition: 64.7/90.0 Wh (72%) volts: 15.0/15.0 model: ASUSTeK ASUS Battery 
           type: Li-ion serial: N/A status: Not charging cycles: 54 
Memory:    RAM: total: 31.30 GiB used: 276.3 MiB (0.9%) 
           RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:       Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7-6820HK bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake-S family: 6 model-id: 5E (94) 
           stepping: 3 microcode: D6 L2 cache: 8192 KiB bogomips: 43214 
           Speed: 900 MHz min/max: 800/3600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 900 2: 900 3: 900 4: 900 5: 900 6: 900 7: 900 8: 901 
           Flags: 3dnowprefetch abm acpi adx aes aperfmperf apic arat arch_perfmon art avx avx2 bmi1 bmi2 bts clflush 
           clflushopt cmov constant_tsc cpuid cpuid_fault cx16 cx8 de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts ept ept_ad erms est f16c 
           flexpriority flush_l1d fma fpu fsgsbase fxsr hle ht hwp hwp_act_window hwp_epp hwp_notify ibpb ibrs ida intel_pt 
           invpcid invpcid_single lahf_lm lm mca mce md_clear mmx monitor movbe mpx msr mtrr nonstop_tsc nopl nx pae pat pbe 
           pcid pclmulqdq pdcm pdpe1gb pebs pge pln pni popcnt pse pse36 pti pts rdrand rdseed rdtscp rep_good rtm sdbg sep 
           smap smep ss ssbd sse sse2 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 stibp syscall tm tm2 tpr_shadow tsc tsc_adjust tsc_deadline_timer 
           vme vmx vnmi vpid x2apic xgetbv1 xsave xsavec xsaveopt xsaves xtopology xtpr 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds status: Vulnerable: No microcode 
           Type: tsx_async_abort mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GM204M [GeForce GTX 980M] vendor: ASUSTeK driver: N/A alternate: nouveau bus ID: 01:00.0 
           chip ID: 10de:1617 
           Device-2: Realtek USB2.0 HD UVC WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-4:3 chip ID: 0bda:57fa 
           serial: <filter> 
           Display: server: Xorg 1.20.8 driver: nvidia tty: 128x48 
           Message: Advanced graphics data unavailable in console. Try -G --display 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:a170 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GM204 High Definition Audio vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 01:00.1 
           chip ID: 10de:0fbb 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.8.6-1-MANJARO 
Network:   Device-1: Intel Wireless 8260 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: e000 bus ID: 02:00.0 chip ID: 8086:24f3 
           IF: wlp2s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: ASUSTeK driver: r8169 v: kernel 
           port: d000 bus ID: 03:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:8168 
           IF: enp3s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           IP v4: <filter> type: noprefixroute scope: global broadcast: <filter> 
           IP v6: <filter> scope: link 
           WAN IP: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 1.40 TiB used: 19.79 GiB (1.4%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVPV512HDGL-00000 size: 476.94 GiB block size: physical: 512 B 
           logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: BXW7300Q scheme: GPT 
           ID-2: /dev/sda vendor: HGST (Hitachi) model: HTS721010A9E630 size: 931.51 GiB block size: physical: 4096 B 
           logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s rotation: 7200 rpm serial: <filter> rev: A3J0 scheme: GPT 
           ID-3: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DT 101 G2 size: 14.42 GiB block size: physical: 512 B 
           logical: 512 B serial: <filter> rev: 1.00 scheme: MBR 
           SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure? 
           ID-4: /dev/sdc type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DataTraveler 3.0 size: 14.41 GiB block size: physical: 512 B 
           logical: 512 B serial: <filter> scheme: MBR 
           SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure? 
           Optical-1: /dev/sr0 vendor: ■■■■■■■■ model: BD-CMB UJ172 S rev: 1.00 dev-links: cdrom 
           Features: speed: 24 multisession: yes audio: yes dvd: yes rw: cd-r,cd-rw,dvd-r,dvd-ram state: running 
RAID:      Message: No RAID data was found. 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 467.84 GiB size: 459.50 GiB (98.22%) used: 19.79 GiB (4.3%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
           label: N/A uuid: a91893a0-d664-4cda-abed-da2a5fc20194 
           ID-2: /boot/efi raw size: 300.0 MiB size: 299.4 MiB (99.80%) used: 160 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 
           label: N/A uuid: 6AF6-D44D 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.80 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 label: N/A 
           uuid: 1765fb8d-4ec9-4484-b80f-b9eb5654e7f3 
Unmounted: ID-1: /dev/sda1 size: 931.51 GiB fs: ext4 label: data-disk uuid: 6304d3ac-3748-42b0-bd8d-36bda03fb718 
           ID-2: /dev/sdb1 size: 14.42 GiB fs: vfat label: KINGSTON uuid: 5541-2747 
           ID-3: /dev/sdc1 size: 2.91 GiB fs: iso9660 label: MANJARO_KDE_2003 uuid: 2020-06-06-08-14-33-00 
           ID-4: /dev/sdc2 size: 4.0 MiB fs: vfat label: MISO_EFI uuid: F327-8F27 
USB:       Hub: 1-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 16 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s chip ID: 1d6b:0002 
           Device-1: 1-1:2 info: Kingston DT101 G2 type: Mass Storage driver: usb-storage interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 
           speed: 480 Mb/s chip ID: 0951:1642 serial: <filter> 
           Device-2: 1-4:3 info: Realtek USB2.0 HD UVC WebCam type: Video driver: uvcvideo interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0 
           speed: 480 Mb/s chip ID: 0bda:57fa serial: <filter> 
           Device-3: 1-8:4 info: ASUSTek ASUS HID Device type: Keyboard,Mouse driver: hid-generic,usbhid interfaces: 2 
           rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s chip ID: 0b05:1819 
           Device-4: 1-9:5 info: Intel Bluetooth wireless interface type: Bluetooth driver: btusb interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0 
           speed: 12 Mb/s chip ID: 8087:0a2b 
           Device-5: 1-10:6 info: ASUSTek Ghost Key Elimiantion Keyboard type: Keyboard,HID driver: asus,usbhid 
           interfaces: 2 rev: 1.1 speed: 12 Mb/s chip ID: 0b05:1822 
           Hub: 2-0:1 info: Full speed (or root) Hub ports: 10 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s chip ID: 1d6b:0003 
           Device-1: 2-2:2 info: Kingston DataTraveler 100 G3/G4/SE9 G2/50 type: Mass Storage driver: usb-storage 
           interfaces: 1 rev: 3.2 speed: 5 Gb/s chip ID: 0951:1666 serial: <filter> 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 52.5 C mobo: N/A 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 1900 
Info:      Processes: 181 Uptime: 2m Init: systemd v: 246 target: multi-user.target Compilers: gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: 
           pacman: 1300 lib: 352 flatpak: 0 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8 running in: tty 1 inxi: 3.1.05

Apologies if there is an obvious smoking gun here. I’m still learning linux and this issue is above my head. If you need any other outputs let me know!

nike2020 · 14 September 2020 04:43

Hey again guys.

I’ve been bashing away at this trying to find any info that will help me locate the issue. I removed silent from grubs config and can now see that it’s booting and getting stuck after “Started CUPS Scheduler”. I saw another post about this for gnome and tried their suggestion:- ctrl+alt+F3 & ctrl+alt+F1 to bypass this and bring up the GUI. Didn’t work for me and now hit a brick wall again =/

megavolt · 14 September 2020 06:10

Hello @nike2020!

First of all. Please use this formatting for code (please edit the post ) ["```" on the first and the last line] :
Peek 2020-09-13 19-04

That is more readable then.
Thank you

cfinnberg · 14 September 2020 10:04

Hello, your boot process with grub seems fine as it finds and try to boot your system. I guess that your problem can be a kernel update.
You can try some thing while you are chrooted to your system:

Update your system (just in case):

pacman -Syu

Check /var/log/pacman.log to see what was updated the last time.
Check system logs to try to identify the problem:

sudo journalctl -b -1

Install some other kernel:

pacman -S linux54

You can get a list of kernels that you can install with mhwd-kernel -l

Hope this helps somehow

nike2020 · 14 September 2020 13:44

Hello cfinnberg,

Thank you for your suggestions. I did the pacman -Syu after I first chrooted and made no difference after the successful update. As you suggested I’ve tried to downgrade to linux54. One thing that is strange is system still shows as 5.8.6-1 on boot into multi-user.target and when running uname -r. I tried sudo mhwd-kernel -i linux54 as well as pacman -S linux54. Both outputs said they succeeded but still looks like im on 5.8.6-1.

I’ve also looked at my journalctl with the -x -p3 -b1 parameters, only thing in the logs was a week ago when an application crashed. When I went with -b -1 for journalctl I can’t find any big, obvious, culprit behind this issue. I might post the logs here later, but beginning to give up on this install and may just try a new install.

cfinnberg · 14 September 2020 13:57

You can install multiple kernels. Usually the newer one will be in the main screen of grub’s menu, and the other ones under Advanced options. Do you have these? If not, what is the output of update-grub (under chroot)?

PS: Don’t give up so easily! It’s a slow process through the forum, I know. But majority of these problems can be solved

nike2020 · 14 September 2020 16:06

Thanks for your support cfinnberg. I was able to get around this by configuring GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu and selecting 5.4. Sadly this didn’t resolve the issue and still gets stuck at Started CUPS Scheduler. I just tried to include my outputs from journalctl and Xorg but composer complained at me for going over the 150000 characters body limit with 732779 characters lol.

EDIT: I disabled CUPS and then later re-enabled it. This resulted in getting past “Started CUPS Scheduler”. It even says it’s Reached Target Graphical Interface, but has got stuck at Finished TLP System Startup / Shutdown.

cfinnberg · 14 September 2020 18:14

I have to stop reading user’s messages in “diagonal”

I have now read our messages with more calm and I now understand that your system is booting fine, at least until multi-user.target, and what you have is some graphic driver problem. You have a Nvidia graphic card. But in your inxi output there is no driver. What driver where you using?

If you don’t have a graphic driver you can install one yourself or you can try the automatic mode:

mhwd -a pci nonfree 0300

nike2020 · 14 September 2020 20:35

Thats strange, before this issue began I had my nvidia driver installed. I’ve had a look at it and it seems I do have a driver still, I think.

[manjaro /]# mhwd -li
> Installed PCI configs:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    video-nvidia-450xx            2019.10.25               false            PCI
           video-linux            2018.05.04                true            PCI


Warning: No installed USB configs!

Also I’ve found some entries in journal that look like they may be connected to my problem.

[manjaro /]# journalctl -b -1 | grep -i failed
Sep 14 16:20:34 nick-g752vy kernel: acpi PNP0A08:00: _OSC failed (AE_ERROR); disabling ASPM
Sep 14 16:20:34 nick-g752vy systemd-modules-load[266]: Failed to find module 'nvidia'
Sep 14 16:20:34 nick-g752vy systemd-modules-load[266]: Failed to find module 'nvidia-drm'
Sep 14 16:20:35 nick-g752vy kernel: thermal thermal_zone5: failed to read out thermal zone (-61)
Sep 14 17:20:26 nick-g752vy NetworkManager[759]: <warn>  [1600100426.7759] sup-iface[1074431f6596c972,0,wlp2s0]: call-p2p-cancel: failed with P2P cancel failed
Sep 14 17:20:28 nick-g752vy dbus-daemon[758]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.resolve1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.resolve1.service not found.
Sep 14 17:20:41 nick-g752vy dbus-daemon[758]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Sep 14 17:20:41 nick-g752vy dbus-daemon[758]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Sep 14 17:20:41 nick-g752vy audit[1031]: CRED_ACQ pid=1031 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj==unconfined msg='op=PAM:setcred grantors=? acct="nick" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=failed'
Sep 14 17:20:41 nick-g752vy kernel: audit: type=1103 audit(1600100441.056:53): pid=1031 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 subj==unconfined msg='op=PAM:setcred grantors=? acct="nick" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=failed'
Sep 14 17:23:03 nick-g752vy dbus-daemon[758]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
Sep 14 17:23:09 nick-g752vy dbus-daemon[758]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service': Refusing activation, D-Bus is shutting down.
Sep 14 17:23:09 nick-g752vy dbus-daemon[758]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service': Refusing activation, D-Bus is shutting down.

I don’t know enough to say if the above are capable of hanging the system during boot up. I had a very quick read up on this freedesktop.home1.service not found and it seems to be due to broken symbolic links? I’ll look into this some more tomorrow.

cfinnberg · 14 September 2020 20:41

I think you need to install/reinstall the appropriate kernel drivers for your kernel version:

extra/linux414-nvidia-450xx 450.66-6 (linux414-extramodules)
    NVIDIA drivers for linux.
extra/linux419-nvidia-450xx 450.66-7 (linux419-extramodules)
    NVIDIA drivers for linux.
extra/linux44-nvidia-450xx 450.66-5 (linux44-extramodules)
    NVIDIA drivers for linux.
extra/linux49-nvidia-450xx 450.66-5 (linux49-extramodules)
    NVIDIA drivers for linux.
extra/linux54-nvidia-450xx 450.66-8 (linux54-extramodules)
    NVIDIA drivers for linux.
extra/linux57-nvidia-450xx 450.66-6 (linux57-extramodules)
    NVIDIA drivers for linux.
extra/linux58-nvidia-450xx 450.66-9 (linux58-extramodules)
    NVIDIA drivers for linux.

nike2020 · 14 September 2020 21:05

noob question. To install the kernal driver, lets say the linux58 version, what command and syntex are required? Is this done via pacman? I’ll try this out first thing in the morning and see if this fixes my problem.

Edit:- figured it out, did it through pacman. After install and reboot my GUI is back in action! It seems to be all working so far. Do you have any idea how my install broke to begin with after the update? I’m just thinking how to preventing a similar occurance from happening. Thanks for all your help cfinnberg, looks like my issue is fixed now!

cfinnberg · 15 September 2020 08:37

I can’t know. Sometimes something goes wrong in the update. Maybe you did something inadvertently that caused it. It’s difficult to know.

Anyway, glad that it works now!

system · 18 September 2020 08:37

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