System stuck on infinite loading

Hello, a new Manjaro user here.
Recently, after a few times Windows threw BSoDs and random crashes my way after updates, I thought, why not try Linux and after some googling, decided on Manjaro as I had some experience on Arch about 10-13 years ago.

I went with Plasma version, followed the installer, everything great so far. ( used btrfs and encryption options, open source drivers)
Updated and speed sorted mirrorlist.
Installed newest Kernel version (6.12, and 6.11 system came with).
Run full system update via sudo pacman -Syu
Everything installs nicely, I go for a reboot.
And nothing. Boot stops at manjaro splash with 3 dots moving indefinitely. Tried leaving it for 15 minutes, no dice. Restarted comp, entered BIOS. Checked version, 2018… Whoops, lets update. Still can’t boot unless I manually choose loader in BIOS and it isn’t working all the time. (Win10 option checked on as it unlocks secure boot, and secure boot off, locked to UEFI).
Now I disabled Win10 option, set boot mode to legacy + uefi, reinstall system with same options to make sure I didin’t miss something. Update mirrors, kernel, -Syu, reboot and… Nothing. Again stuck on splash. Sometimes it loads through bios.
Third time (the charm)? Set boot mode to UEFI only, reinstall, update etc. Again not working. When I managed to boot, even tried to reinstall grub following wiki guide, but didn’t get far as manjaro-chroot -a sent error “No Linux partitions detected!”

Tried reading through forums and wiki, couldn’t find a definite answer so trying here.

Hardware info:
Mobo: MSI B350 Tomahawk
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 2700
Mem: 16GB HyperX
GPU: Radeon RX 580 8GB
Storage: 2TB Samsung Evo 970 nvme (install location), 2TB hard for music, movies and general storage

Not scared to try out different things, hell if I were scared, wouldn’t switch from Win10. I like the feel of the system, and think it would be a shame to quit, wanna try it at it’s fullest. Thinking of going from scratch again to make sure everything works, but this time with guidance so I can see where I went wrong.

try to boot kernel with theses options
“iommu=pt nvme_load=YES”

or boot on USB live manjaro
open a terminal and a browser on this topic
and reports

inxi -Fza 
sudo parted -l 
sudo lsblk -fs

Inxi log:

System:
  Kernel: 6.1.19-1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.1
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-x86_64 lang=en_US keytable=us tz=UTC
    misobasedir=manjaro misolabel=MANJARO_KDE_2205 quiet
    systemd.show_status=1 splash driver=free nouveau.modeset=1 i915.modeset=1
    radeon.modeset=1
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.26.5 tk: Qt v: 5.15.8 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 1 dm: SDDM
    Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: Micro-Star model: B350 TOMAHAWK (MS-7A34) v: 1.0
    serial: <superuser required> UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: 1.Q7
    date: 07/17/2022
CPU:
  Info: model: AMD Ryzen 7 2700 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen+ gen: 2
    level: v3 note: check built: 2018-21 process: GF 12nm family: 0x17 (23)
    model-id: 8 stepping: 2 microcode: 0x800820D
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 8 tpc: 2 threads: 16 smt: enabled cache:
    L1: 768 KiB desc: d-8x32 KiB; i-8x64 KiB L2: 4 MiB desc: 8x512 KiB
    L3: 16 MiB desc: 2x8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1844 high: 3200 min/max: 1550/3200 boost: enabled
    scaling: driver: acpi-cpufreq governor: schedutil cores: 1: 3200 2: 1550
    3: 3200 4: 1550 5: 1427 6: 1550 7: 1550 8: 1550 9: 3200 10: 1550 11: 1550
    12: 1550 13: 1435 14: 1550 15: 1550 16: 1550 bogomips: 102437
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed mitigation: untrained return thunk; SMT vulnerable
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via
    prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
    sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines, IBPB: conditional, STIBP:
    disabled, RSB filling, PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere [Radeon RX 470/480/570/570X/580/580X/590]
    vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: GCN-4
    code: Arctic Islands process: GF 14nm built: 2016-20 pcie: gen: 3
    speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16 ports: active: DP-1,DP-2
    empty: DVI-D-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 29:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:67df
    class-ID: 0300 temp: 34.0 C
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.7 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X:
    loaded: amdgpu unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: radeonsi
    gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3840x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 1016x285mm (40.00x11.22")
    s-diag: 1055mm (41.54")
  Monitor-1: DP-1 mapped: DisplayPort-0 pos: primary,left model: Dell U2414H
    serial: <filter> built: 2014 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93 gamma: 1.2
    size: 527x296mm (20.75x11.65") diag: 604mm (23.8") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 1920x1080 min: 720x400
  Monitor-2: DP-2 mapped: DisplayPort-1 pos: right model: Dell U2414H
    serial: <filter> built: 2018 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93 gamma: 1.2
    size: 527x296mm (20.75x11.65") diag: 604mm (23.8") ratio: 16:9 modes:
    max: 1920x1080 min: 720x400
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 22.3.5 renderer: AMD Radeon RX 580 Series
    (polaris10 LLVM 15.0.7 DRM 3.49 6.1.19-1-MANJARO) direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Ellesmere HDMI Audio [Radeon RX 470/480 / 570/580/590]
    vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 1-8:2 v: kernel pcie:
    chip-ID: 0951:16ad class-ID: 0300 gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s serial: <filter>
    lanes: 16 bus-ID: 29:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:aaf0 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Micro-Star MSI
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 3 speed: 8 GT/s lanes: 16
    bus-ID: 2b:00.3 chip-ID: 1022:1457 class-ID: 0403
  Device-3: Kingston HyperX Cloud Revolver S type: USB
    driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
  Sound API: ALSA v: k6.1.19-1-MANJARO running: yes
  Sound Server-1: JACK v: 1.9.22 running: no
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 16.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.65 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
    vendor: Micro-Star MSI driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: gen: 1 speed: 2.5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 23:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168 class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp35s0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 3.65 TiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Samsung model: SSD 970 EVO 2TB
    size: 1.82 TiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s
    lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 1B2QEXE7 temp: 33.9 C scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Seagate model: ST2000VM003-1CT164
    size: 1.82 TiB block-size: physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    type: HDD rpm: 5900 serial: <filter> rev: SC23 scheme: MBR
  ID-3: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB model: USB DISK 2.0 size: 14.46 GiB
    block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: N/A serial: <filter>
    rev: PMAP scheme: MBR
  SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure?
Partition:
  Message: No partition data found.
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 41.9 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 34.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: amdgpu fan: 223
Info:
  Processes: 345 Uptime: 2m wakeups: 0 Memory: 15.55 GiB
  used: 2.21 GiB (14.2%) Init: systemd v: 252 default: graphical
  tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.1 clang: 15.0.7 Packages: pm: pacman
  pkgs: 1201 libs: 324 tools: pamac pm: flatpak pkgs: 0 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9
  default: Bash v: 5.1.16 running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.25

Parted:

Model: ATA ST2000VM003-1CT1 (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 2000GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/4096B
Partition Table: msdos
Disk Flags: 

Number  Start   End     Size    Type     File system  Flags
 1      1049kB  2000GB  2000GB  primary  ntfs         boot


Model:  USB DISK 2.0 (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      4084MB  4088MB  4194kB  primary               esp


Model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 2TB (nvme)
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 2000GB
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   1991GB  1991GB               root
 3      1991GB  2000GB  9449MB

lsblk log:

AME    FSTYPE FSVER LABEL          UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
loop0   squash 4.0                                                             0   100% /run/miso/sfs/livefs
loop1   squash 4.0                                                             0   100% /run/miso/sfs/mhwdfs
loop2   squash 4.0                                                             0   100% /run/miso/sfs/desktopfs
loop3   squash 4.0                                                             0   100% /run/miso/sfs/rootfs
sda1    ntfs         Media          E946068D9149B9DB                                    
└─sda                                                                                   
sdb1    iso966 Jolie MANJARO_KDE_2205
                                    2023-03-16-12-31-50-00                              
└─sdb   iso966 Jolie MANJARO_KDE_2205
                                    2023-03-16-12-31-50-00                     0   100% /run/miso/bootmnt
sdb2    vfat   FAT12 MISO_EFI       623B-25B9                                           
└─sdb   iso966 Jolie MANJARO_KDE_2205
                                    2023-03-16-12-31-50-00                     0   100% /run/miso/bootmnt
nvme0n1p1
        vfat   FAT32                4C6C-3119                                           
└─nvme0n1
                                                                                        
nvme0n1p2
        crypto 1                    a7a01e18-34f0-4cb8-af39-7d18b78062ec                
└─nvme0n1
                                                                                        
nvme0n1p3
        crypto 1                    e6613470-627e-40d0-b81d-d749babf5b04                
└─nvme0n1

Loaded from LiveUSB.

then recheck all theses options in UEFI motherboard

secure boot off
fast boot off
csm off
legacy off
drivers on AHCI ( not raid )
no optane RST

Went through all options, set them all again to those except fast boot, which is not on this mobo ( I guess too old for it ), only option that could do something like that is Full Screen Logo Display, which is enabled, and when I searched for info, it reduces loading time if off (was always enabled).

Only other options in BIOS that could maybe be variables are boot order, which says UEFI Hard Disk:manjaro and under UEFI HDD BBS Priorities, I have 2 options, “manjaro” (1st) and “UEFI OS (Samsung SSD 970…)”.

Manjaro booted normally to login screen after saving options in BIOS and rebooting, but after I shut the PC down ( by waiting the 30 seconds after you press shut down on desktop), after the cold start it is again hung up on 3 dots screen with my mobo logo in background.

so you installed manjaro normally, booted into it normally, updated, reboot and now you stuck? if so, can you enter into tty in the stuck screen with ctrl+alt+f2 or f1-f6 keys, enter your username and password and type:
startx
and take a pic of the output…

also check if you have fast startup disabled in windows…

Nothing happened as I try any combination of those keys, tried even turning off full screen splash, no changes.

Tried even “blindly” typing everything in order thinking it might change something, nope.

Also, Manjaro is the only system atm, not trying dual boot, pure Linux system.

do you have btrfs + encryption?

Yes. I used automatic options in installer, making a boot 300 mb Fat32, and encrypted root and swap (8.8 gb?) as btrfs and turned on encryption (it said luks on installation screen after password setting). I tried with ext4 option on one try, without encryption, still same problem as now.

so boot into live usb, and install this package:
pamac install manjaro-rescue
it should chroot for you, but i have no idea if it will work with btrfs+encryption, so if it doesnt work we will chroot manually… so which is the root partition from the lsblk output, the nmvp2 or the nvmp3?

Booted from live usb ( Install Manjaro only icon on desktop ), root is nvme0n1p2, swap is nvme0n1p3 ( viewing through Gparted ).

If I try to install manjaro-rescue, getting “Error: target not found: manjaro-rescue”. If I look into installed packages, it is showing as already installed.

so its probably already being shipped with the live usb, so run it and see if you can chroot, if not, run this:

sudo cryptsetup -v luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p2 cryptDrive
sudo mount /dev/mapper/cryptDrive -o subvol=@ /mnt
sudo manjaro-chroot /mnt

i dont use btrfs, so im not sure if the mount command is correct, so just post output of these commands…

Ok, first try was

manjaro-chroot -a

Error was “No Linux partitions detected!”

Second try I typed everything in sequence, here is how it looks like now:

sudo cryptsetup -v luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p2 cryptDrive                                        
Enter passphrase for /dev/nvme0n1p2: 
Key slot 0 unlocked.
Command successful.
sudo mount /dev/mapper/cryptDrive -o subvol=@ /mnt                                     
sudo manjaro-chroot /mnt                                                                      
sh-5.1# 

I guess this way chroot worked.

looks like it, so provide logs from the failed boot:
journalctl -b-1 -p4 --no-pager


this doesnt work with encryption and btrfs

This is the message I get after running the command:

No journal files were found.
Data from the specified boot (-1) is not available: No such boot ID in journal

ok so exit chroot:
exit
and chroot again with mounting also logs:

sudo cryptsetup -v luksOpen /dev/nvme0n1p2 cryptDrive
sudo mount /dev/mapper/cryptDrive -o subvol=@ /mnt
sudo mount /dev/mapper/cryptDrive -o subvol=@log /mnt/var/log
sudo mount /dev/mapper/cryptDrive -o subvol=@cache /mnt/var/cache
sudo manjaro-chroot /mnt

and run the journal command again

Had to skip first two commands, as it said it it already mounted, so started with third row, this is what log says:

Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: tpm tpm0: AMD fTPM version 0x3000700000003 causes system stutter; hwrng dis
abled
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: blacklist: Problem blacklisting hash (-13)
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: blacklist: Problem blacklisting hash (-13)
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: blacklist: Problem blacklisting hash (-13)
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: blacklist: Problem blacklisting hash (-13)
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: blacklist: Problem blacklisting hash (-13)
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: blacklist: Problem blacklisting hash (-13)
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: nvme nvme0: missing or invalid SUBNQN field.
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] No Caching mode page found
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine kernel: sd 9:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine systemd-vconsole-setup[418]: KD_FONT_OP_GET failed while trying to get the font met
adata: Invalid argument
Mar 31 20:12:34 themachine systemd-vconsole-setup[418]: Fonts will not be copied to remaining consoles
Mar 31 20:12:35 themachine kernel: kvm: support for 'kvm_amd' disabled by bios
Mar 31 20:12:37 themachine kernel: amdgpu: SRAT table not found
Mar 31 20:12:47 themachine kernel: kauditd_printk_skb: 18 callbacks suppressed
Mar 31 20:12:57 themachine systemd[1]: plymouth-quit.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
Mar 31 20:12:57 themachine systemd[1]: plymouth-quit.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Mar 31 20:12:57 themachine systemd[1]: Failed to start Terminate Plymouth Boot Screen.
Mar 31 20:12:58 themachine sddm[644]: Failed to read display number from pipe
Mar 31 20:12:58 themachine sddm[644]: Attempt 1 starting the Display server on vt 1 failed
Mar 31 20:13:00 themachine sddm[644]: Failed to read display number from pipe
Mar 31 20:13:00 themachine sddm[644]: Attempt 2 starting the Display server on vt 1 failed
Mar 31 20:13:02 themachine sddm[644]: Failed to read display number from pipe
Mar 31 20:13:02 themachine sddm[644]: Attempt 3 starting the Display server on vt 1 failed
Mar 31 20:13:02 themachine sddm[644]: Could not start Display server on vt 1
Mar 31 20:16:17 themachine sddm[644]: Signal received: SIGTERM

post output from:
mhwd -l -li && mhwd-kernel -li

and do you have grub menu shown during boot?

mhwd output:

> Installed PCI configs:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           video-linux            2018.05.04                true            PCI


Warning: No installed USB configs!
> 0000:23:00.0 (0200:10ec:8168) Network controller Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
         network-r8168            2016.04.20                true            PCI


> 0000:29:00.0 (0300:1002:67df) Display controller ATI Technologies Inc:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                  NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
           video-linux            2018.05.04                true            PCI
     video-modesetting            2020.01.13                true            PCI
            video-vesa            2017.03.12                true            PCI


Currently running: 6.1.19-1-MANJARO (linux61)
The following kernels are installed in your system:
   * linux61
   * linux62

And, no grub menu, after entering decryption key, it goes straight to Manjaro loading screen.

so for grub menu:
nano /etc/default/grub
and edit this line to look like this (its the third from top):
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu
save it with: ctrl+x, press ‘Y’, then enter and update grub:
update-grub


now enable early loading of the video driver:
nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
and edit the MODULES section to look like this:

MODULES=(amdgpu)

save it with ctrl+x press Y, then enter and update it:
mkinitcpio -P


now rerun update again:
pacman-mirrors --fasttrack 5 && pacman -Syyu
if there were no errors, install also the 5.15 kernel:
pacman -S linux515
if no errors, exit chroot, reboot, and now you will have grub menu, so in the advanced options try booting also with the 5.15 kernel - not the fallback one…