Hello everyone.
I tried to install a different graphics driver today and now I’m facing the same issue. None of the suggested pacman commands work for me in TTY. I get more than a screenful of error messages saying that file multilib.db could not be loaded: “Could not resolve host:” and then it lists a different host in every line.
If I check sddm status, it tells me it’s loaded, but inactive (dead).
Is there any way to resolve all of this or shouldI just reinstall?
Hello,
Moved to a dedicated topic so you get the proper assistance.
Make sure you do not have a mirror that is not responding. To change mirrors you can run from terminal:
sudo pacman-mirrors -f && sudo pacman -Syyu
You can try the interactive way:
sudo pacman-mirrors -i
and you chose only the mirrors you want.
Make use of Mirror-Check Service - is always mentioned in the announcements of the updates, depending on what branch you are.
Once all is updated, reboot and if SDDM still fails, try again my suggestion:
Thank you for your help.
I have tried all the commands you suggested so far and nothing has worked for me yet. The error still persists.
If I run
sudo pacman-mirrors -f && sudo pacman -Syyu
my screen shows a wave of error messages saying file x couldn’t be transferred from server y. The last line reads “Error synchronizing all databases”.
So then I try
sudo pacman-mirrors -i
and pick a selection of 12 servers from Germany, Netherlands and Austria. Then I run
sudo pacman-mirrors -f && sudo pacman -Syyu
again. My screen shows a similar wave of error messages, sometimes broken up by the message “Error: Couldn’t update core (invalid URL for server)”.
So something has changed but the end result is still “Error synchronizing all databases”.
(I have also tried the bit with stopping, disabling and enabling sddm. But systemctl status sddm always reports the same result regardless whether it’s stopped, disabled or enabled and the original error is still there).
Are you connected to the internet?
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I assumed that I was - but I was wrong. The laptop only seems to connect to wifi after launching the OS.
I connected to my wifi in TTY following guides I found elsewhere.
I then ran sudo pacman-mirrors -f && sudo pacman -Syyu plasma-desktop sddm qt5-base and it finally seemed to do something. The system already had the latest updates, so it didn’t do anything there, but the other packages were reinstalled.
I restarted the computer and still got the error though. I also tried stopping, disabling and enabling SDDM again and the error is still there. Maybe I have to reinstall/replace graphics drivers in TTY?
Can you tell us what the issue is?
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This thread was split from another one. I can’t link to it, but bogdancovaciu quoted his own post from that thread in his first reply to this one.
In short, I am also running into the issue where my OS will not start properly, but only display “[Failed] Failed to start Simple Desktop Display Manager” upon startup. For me, it happened after I tried installing a different nvidia graphics driver via hardware management.
If SDDM is anything like GDM, it start its own Xorg server, can you possibly find the logs? Does /var/log/Xorg.log exist? Or maybe /var/run/sddm/? Could you also share the output of sudo systemctl status sddm?
But most importantly, please include the output of inxi -Fza.
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As this is a new thread, the new people looking into this don’t know the history. Can you post what you were doing exactly?
E.G. I typed the following command:
mhwd --remove pci video-nvidia-440xx
and then ran into the above problem…
The output of:
inxi --system --verbosity=7 --filter --no-host --admi
would be beneficial as well
And please, when providing code/output, please copy-paste it in-between 3 backticks at the beginning and end of the code/text ``` so that the output looks like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.
Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.
Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
instead of like this:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
(as that makes our life much easier so you get helped more quickly and efficiently)
Thank you. The timeline got very confusing on this issue - I’ll try to recap what happened start to finish. Sorry for the code thing. I’m still getting used to the forum mechanics.
So, I had a fresh install of Manjaro KDE on my Asus laptop which uses a hybrid GPU system: An intel card for 2D applications and a Geforce card for 3D. I tried running Terraria via Steam and it just opened a black window and closed a few seconds later. The game runs fine on Windows 10 on the same system. So I thought something must be wrong with the drivers.
I entered the settings menu and went to hardware setup, then graphics drivers. I uninstalled
video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-440xx-prime
and instead installed
video-nvidia-440xx
and
video-linux
from that menu.
(At least that’s what I intended to do - Could be I made a mistake or maybe picked a different driver version at this step. There is no way for me to go back and check now).
I let the installation finish and restarted the laptop. It didn’t start properly, but displayed the error message:
[Failed] Failed to start Simple Desktop Display Manager
Following instructions from the other thread, I went into TTY and connected to Wifi, then ran
sudo pacman-mirrors -f && sudo pacman -Syyu plasma-desktop sddm qt5-base
The system already had the latest updates, so it didn’t do anything there, but plasma-desktop, sddm and qt5-base were reinstalled.
The error message [Failed] Failed to start Simple Desktop Display Manager was still there and the system didn’t start, so I re-entered TTY and entered the following commands:
systemctl stop sddm
systemctl disable sddm
systemctl enable sddm
systemctl reboot
But I still get the error.
I also tried
systemctl stop sddm
startplasma-x11
Which returned
$DISPLAY is not set or cannot connect to the X server.
That’s where I am right now.
Please provide the output to:
mhwd --listinstalled
And we’ll take it from there…
This is unfortunately a gravely mistaken step that I’ve seen three different people take in the span of two days. 
Fortunately, it is very easily fixable.
There exist two files: /var/log/Xorg.0.log and /var/log/Xorg.0.log.old, but I do not know how to view their content.
sudo systemctl status sddm returns the following:
Loaded: loaded (/user/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: inactive (dead)
Docs: man:sddm(1)
man:sddm.conf(5)
inxi -Fza lists a whole bunch of stuff. The graphics adapters are as follows:
Device-1: Intel Haswell-ULT Integrated Graphics vendor: ASUSTek driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00.02.0 chip ID: 8086.0a16
Device-2: NVIDIA GM108M [GeForce 840M] vendor: ASUSTek driver: nvidia v: 450.66 alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm busID: 04:00.0 chip ID: 10de:1341
mhwd --listinstalled provides the following:
NAME VERSION FREEDRIVER TYPE
video-linux 2018.05.04 true PCI
video-nvidia-450xx 2019.10.25 false PCI
Warning: No installed USB configs!
I hope that about covers it.
- uninstall
video-nvidia-450xx:sudo mhwd -r pci video-nvidia-450xx, then - install
video-modesetting:sudo mhwd -i pci video-modesetting, then - install
video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-450xx-prime:sudo mhwd -i pci video-hybrid-intel-nvidia-450xx-prime - reboot
Thanks a bunch - this worked! Manjaro started succesfully this time. Now I just gotta figure out how to start any games on this machine.
Install the nvidia-prime package. And then run the following to test PRIME render offload:
glxinfo | grep "OpenGL vendor"
prime-run glxinfo | grep "OpenGL vendor"
They should be different, and the second one should say NVIDIA Corporation.
I’ve marked the below answer as the solution to your question as it is by far the best answer you’ll get.
However, if you disagree with my choice, please feel free to take any other answer as the solution to your question or even remove the solution altogether: You are in control! (I just want to avoid even more subjective opinions being posted and confusing you even more)
P.S. In the future, please mark a solution like this:
so that the next person that has the exact same problem you just had will benefit from your post as well as your question will now be in the “solved” status.
nvidia-prime is installed. The first command returns “Intel Open Source Technology Center”. The second one returns “Nvidia Corporation”. The game still only opens a black window and then closes after a few seconds.
Can you run prime-run glxgears? Have you tested different games?
Yes, glxgears runs fine. I also tested Portal and it worked. So this seems to be a problem specific to the game. Which surprises me because it’s a linux-native game. I’ll try to find out what’s wrong with it.