Failed to start gnome display manager

Support Graphics & Display
1 
System:    Kernel: 5.10.53-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0 Desktop: GNOME 40.3 
           Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 82B5 v: Lenovo Legion 5 15ARH05 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: LNVNB161216 v: SDK0J40688 WIN serial: <filter> 
           UEFI-[Legacy]: LENOVO v: EUCN19WW date: 05/12/2020 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 43.7 Wh (85.0%) condition: 51.4/60.0 Wh (85.6%) volts: 15.9 
           min: 15.4 model: Celxpert L19C4PC0 status: Discharging 
CPU:       Info: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
           arch: Zen 2 rev: 1 cache: L2: 4 MiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 92666 
           Speed: 1614 MHz min/max: 1400/2900 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1614 
           2: 1491 3: 1397 4: 1325 5: 1397 6: 1370 7: 1961 8: 2174 9: 2545 10: 2544 11: 1273 
           12: 1284 13: 1272 14: 1271 15: 1396 16: 1401 
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA TU117M [GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile] vendor: Lenovo driver: nvidia 
           v: 470.57.02 bus-ID: 01:00.0 
           Device-2: AMD Renoir vendor: Lenovo driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus-ID: 05:00.0 
           Device-3: Chicony Integrated Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: 1-3:2 
           Display: server: X.org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: amdgpu,nvidia 
           resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.40.0 5.10.53-1-MANJARO LLVM 12.0.1) 
           v: 4.6 Mesa 21.1.5 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: AMD Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor vendor: Lenovo driver: N/A 
           bus-ID: 05:00.5 
           Device-2: AMD Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Lenovo driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus-ID: 05:00.6 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.53-1-MANJARO running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no 
           Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 14.2 running: yes 
           Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.32 running: no 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet vendor: Lenovo 
           driver: r8169 v: kernel port: 2000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter> 
           Device-2: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 2000 bus-ID: 04:00.0 
           IF: wlp4s0 state: down mac: <filter> 
Bluetooth: Device-1: Intel AX200 Bluetooth type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 3-3:3 
           Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 3 state: up address: see --recommends 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 143.54 GiB (30.1%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: MZVLB512HBJQ-000L2 size: 476.94 GiB 
           temp: 40.9 C 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 459.79 GiB used: 143.54 GiB (31.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 
Swap:      ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.8 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 39.1 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 37.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 391 Uptime: 2m Memory: 15.07 GiB used: 3.3 GiB (21.9%) Init: systemd 
           Compilers: gcc: 11.1.0 Packages: 1498 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.1.8-release 
           inxi: 3.3.06

After the latest stable update, I boot up to a blank screen with a message that says “failed to start gnome display manager”. I’m able ALT+F2 and login from there. Is there a way to fix this?

2

Does reinstalling gdm help?
[* Never do any such thing without taking a backup first]

3

I’m was a little hesitant with your suggestion because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of restoring a backup. So I thought I’d try something that was in a help thread I had recently.

So, I’ve had a recurring issue with my system booting to a blank screen and had help on how to edit the gdm service. I tried reverting the edits with sudo systemctl revert gdm

So far it seems to be working. Will monitor if it happens again.

4

You should then mark your post as the solution. It would be helpful for others. :wink:

5

I wasn’t sure it would be a real fix. I no longer get the error message but my original problem of booting to a blank screen came back.

6