Can't login after update since X11 got removed

[Meron]

DISTRIB_ID=“ManjaroLinux”
DISTRIB_RELEASE=“26.0.3”
DISTRIB_CODENAME=“Anh-Linh”
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION=“Manjaro Linux”

GNOME 49
Kernel: Linux 5.10.250-1-MANJARO

Nvidia 4070
video-nvidia 2025.09.29 non-free

Issue:

System loads to GDM login screen, (two options, Gnome/Gnome Classic), select Gnome, and try to login. The screen goes blank, and shows the boot splash. Is then unresponsive.

If restarting GDM from tty, after login, shows frozen version of tty.

There is no specific Gnome (Wayland) setting but I assume “Gnome” should now be this in 49.

Things tried: This issue appears similar/identical to: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=289873, where the users solution was “after 50 reboots the issue went away”.

Have tried all fixes listed in that thread.
Adding all the good stuff to custom.conf (waylandenable true) or deleting the config entirely. No effect.
A long list of various “fixes” such as enabling various nvidia services, setting environment variables etc. No effect.
Kernel modesetting appears enabled. Changed to early KMS start via mkinitcpio. No Effect.

Logging/details of use?

There is a gdm-greeter session on tty1. Gnome crashes when logging in from gui.

 systemd-coredump[4760]: Process 4759 (gnome-session) of user 1000 terminated abnormally with signal 5/TRAP, processing...

kernel: traps: gnome-session[4759] trap int3 ip:- sp:- error:0 in libglib-2.0.so.0.8600.4[7fa99f47f000+a7000]

gdm[1616]: Gdm: GdmDisplay: Session never registered, failing gsd-xsettings[3521]: Failed to open X11 display: :1025 ← Still trying to look for x11? Why?

gnome-shell[1732]: Gio.DBusError: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownProperty: Unknown interface org.freedesktop.IBus Various:

 unable to open file '/etc/dconf/db/site': Failed to open file “/etc/dconf/db/site”: open() failed: No such file or directory
 unable to open file '/etc/dconf/db/gdm': Failed to open file “/etc/dconf/db/gdm”: open() failed: No such file or directory
 unable to open file '/etc/dconf/db/distro': Failed to open file “/etc/dconf/db/distro”:

If I switch to a tty and run gnome-session, I get an error about an invalid target.

I don’t appear to have a gdm.rules file to delete, an often suggested solution.

If I run gnome-shell --wayland I can launch into gnome perfectly fine aside from various things being broken because gnome doesn’t know it’s running in Wayland (e.g gnome-settings).

So - why can’t I login from GDM? It seems like it’s trying to start x11 still and failing.

[scotty65]

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[Aragorn]

Welcome to the forum!

@Meron

gdm[1616]: Gdm: GdmDisplay: Session never registered, failing gsd-xsettings[3521]: Failed to open X11 display: :1025 ← Still trying to look for x11? Why?

With the caveat that I use neither gdm nor GNOME, I suspect it’s got some remnants of X11 references in its systemwide configuration, commonly under /etc — /etc/gdm perhaps? Or maybe it has something under /etc/systemd that’s still trying to invoke X11.

Also, I don’t know how gdm works under the hood, but it’s also possible that it relies on a hidden file or hidden directory — i.e. a file or directory whose name starts with a dot — inside your home directory.

[Meron]

If there’s any remnants, I can’t find them, or don’t know where to look (or it is not obvious that they belong to GDM/are influencing it’s behaviour).

I’ve cleared everything I can find, reinstalled gdm from scratch with overwriting, and still not resolved.

SDDM actually works fine, but I’d really rather not use that - shouldn’t the desktop manager which ships with gnome wayland actually support gnome wayland?

[Meron]

Aha, I think I’ve found it.

Turning on gdm debug shows this:

gdm[9287]: Gdm: GdmManager: session failed to start: GDBus.Error:org.gnome.DisplayManager.SessionWorker.Error.OpeningSession: Failed to execute PostLogin script

gdm[9287]: Gdm: GdmDisplay: Session never registered, failing

The PostLogin script I have seems to be:

#!/bin/sh
#Manjaro tweak to kill double shell
grep -q ^AutomaticLoginEnable=True /etc/gdm/custom.conf || pkill -KILL -u gdm

Deleting this allows me use GDM again!

Looking up the contents of the file brings me to this thread Unable to log in using GDM after Jan. 4 2026 update - #8 by heistp which I completely missed in the hours of searching for any related issues.

Like the user in that thread, I also installed Manjaro for the first time in 2020, so perhaps it only affects users who have fairly long-lived installations. I suppose the ghosts accumulate.