Hi all, the update failed 
I did an update on a laptop. It seems to have reverted to all vanilla settings (XFCE) while it was using KDE.
I can log in, and there is a user folder, though empty.
In de file explorer, I can see a 79Gb device that I can access after I enter my password. All my files are there.
I assume that the home partition somehow got disconnected and Pacman made a new and empty home folder. I cannot, however, select KDE in the login screen.
I think I may need to reinstall GRUB, but that still does not explayn why KDE was replaced with XFCEā¦
Iām still in deep meditationā¦care to meditate with me?
Thanks
Melissa 
(always eager to learn something)
Hello Mellisa.
Please use ājournalctlā to check why your home partition was not mounted.
Can you mount your partition with your home using āsudo mount /dev/$HOMEPARTITION /home/testā (please adjust and create accordingly)?
If so, enter āidā and compare the id displayed with the one under ā/home/test.ā If your username is displayed there directly, itās fine.
You also need to compare the path ā/dev/$HOMEPARTITIONā with your /etc/fstab. If it differs, you must correct your fstab and restart. Consider using UUID there if you donāt already.
Have you converted your /etc/mkinitcpio.conf to systemd?
Is your home partition encrypted?
T-Yes I can, I have to enter my passwordā¦
I checked, and the UUID checks outā¦
Ehmā¦I dont know what you mean by that, sorry
Nope, seemed useless, since the laptop never leaves the houseā¦
Thanks
I 'm reading the pages on thatā¦
Edit : I tried FSCK, and that came back with parse errors in FSTABā¦
Thatās a strong indication. What is the specific error message?
Since you can mount it manually, compare the contents of ā/etc/mtabā with ā/etc/fstabā for your home partition after mounting.
Something is obviously wrong. Did you make any changes to fstab during your initial troubleshooting?
Yes, I (did) make a copy of FSTAB, though. I followed these hintsā¦
Ow, we may not have met. Iām Melissa and Iām the āweird oneā 
ā¦Iām happy about this situation, itās educational. Itās a secondary laptop (thanks to the Holy cup oā Coffee itās not my main box)ā¦but I am learning. Thatās good.
Iāll paste the backup back and try to reboot.
The user space is blank (no startable/listable applications and no functionality)
Thanks.
I already installed KDE, but I remember that I opted for XFCE initially (this being an older mac) so THAT mystery is solved, there never was a KDE to start withā¦ 
Edit : looking at the āgeneratedā FSTAB some lines were commented out and the UUID was not usedā¦clearly, the ātipsā were not very useful.
The system is up now, but the link to the /home partition is still āout thereāā¦
Hi @ButterflyMelissa I have moved your posts and the replies into a dedicated thread.
From what I can see, it looks like, at some point, you have installed Xfce alongside Plasma (or maybe the other way round). Is this the case?
Hi, thanks for moving the post
Well, in my confusion, I did. XFCE (ht eorigianal system) now runs, I did have to redo some settings (minor stuff, all educational)ā¦
The link to the /home partition is still missing.
This is a secondary laptop, I hope this does not happen to my main box. That is why I have these secondary systemā¦to do a dry-run before tackling the main box 
The update never changes anything user related.
That means it wonāt change your desktop from Plasma to vanilla XFCE.
Something else is in play - the empty home folder point toward filesystem errors - from the top of my head
- btrfs?
- filesystem error?
- partition layout?
- forgotten multiboot?
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Hmm, it worked before the update, so (it being an older Macbook) - it could be a filssystem error, so I did a FSCK, that gave no errors, I may need to dive deeper in. Could be that the /home foled needs to be empty before I tinkerā¦there is a new/recent user folder in thereā¦and that is weird.
The logs are still in there. Iāll dig in to look in there.
More learning
thanks
Melissa
Well, Iām doing my best with the information youāve provided. Questions have been ignored, and I canāt read minds.
For example, the exact error message regarding fstab that you had or the error message in journalctl. There was also no feedback on the comparison between fstab and mtab after manually mounting your home partition. The difference should be noticeable by then at the latest.
Good luck.
Hi,
Finally got to the laptopā¦okay,
Error message:
[WhiteCloud ~]# fsck /dev/sda2
fsck from util-linux 2.41.3
fsck: /etc/fstab: parse error at line 10 -- ignored
fsck: /etc/fstab: parse error at line 11 -- ignored
e2fsck 1.47.3 (8-Jul-2025)
/dev/sda2: clean, 42969/4808704 files, 3557401/19206144 blocks
[WhiteCloud ~]# ^C
the Fstab, however:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a device; this may
# be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices that works even if
# disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
UUID=1e41e35c-483e-45dd-9d35-e457823b7651 / ext4 noatime 0 1
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs noatime,mode=1777 0 0
UUID=d7d06065-9aee-4d12-9733-cb81a7c45ccb /home ext4 nosuid, nodev, noatime 0 2
UUID=2e624803-7c7f-44c5-9e19-000a896f3f29 swap swap defaults, noatime, mode=1777 0 0
[WhiteCloud ~]#
and the weird thing is that the UUID of the /home matches with the FSTABā¦
ah, so THATās how you do it! Okayā¦letās seeā¦thanks
Edit :
Mounting
sudo mount /sda2/melissa /home/melissa
[sudo] password for melissa:
mount: /home/melissa: fsconfig() failed: /sda2/melissa: Can't lookup blockdev.
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
/dev/sda2 is not mentioned in the mtab (mount table? Is that what this file is?)
Andā¦of course I had to enter
mount /dev/sda2 /home
After that, it mountedā¦
Letās see the mtab, thenā¦
This line got addedā¦
/dev/sda2 /home/melissa ext4 rw,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 0
UUID=d7d06065-9aee-4d12-9733-cb81a7c45ccb /home ext4 nosuid, nodev, noatime 0 2
UUID=2e624803-7c7f-44c5-9e19-000a896f3f29 swap swap defaults, noatime, mode=1777 0 0
This should be:
UUID=d7d06065-9aee-4d12-9733-cb81a7c45ccb /home ext4 nosuid,nodev,noatime 0 2
UUID=2e624803-7c7f-44c5-9e19-000a896f3f29 none swap defaults 0 0
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The label shouldnāt matter; in fact swap isnāt even defined in the fstab on this particular system and hibernate etc. works just fineĀ¹.
Ā¹ Maybe Iāll get faster resume-from-hibernate (or cold boot) if I do define that. 
These lines in /etc/fstab are these here:
The fourth field, the mount options, are supposed to be
a comma separated list
What you have there is a comma and then a space before the next option.
for instance:
UUID=d7d06065-9aee-4d12-9733-cb81a7c45ccb /home ext4 nosuid, nodev, noatime 0 2
vs. what should be:
UUID=d7d06065-9aee-4d12-9733-cb81a7c45ccb /home ext4 nosuid,nodev,noatime 0 2
I do not know whether that could be part of the problem,
but I have never put a space after the comma ā¦
This looks like syntax errors in /etc/fstab ā¦
3 Likes
Definetlyā¦either that orā¦this
(the mods already know me, Iām personally having fun, no kidding and no sarcasmā¦
)ā¦the login screenā¦
ā¦ technically Iām one of them
and I indeed do know you (from your posts here only)
ā¦ does that mean that you donāt want your requests to be taken seriously?
Iām a bit confused. 
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I cannot be taken serously - Iām way too crazy for that - I choose Manjaro so I could have a challenge once in a while, and nowā¦I got oneā¦lovely.
By the way, the login is solved, I removed SDDM and some orphans, reinstalled SDDM, cleaned out the pacman cache and did what a normal sane Linux user does: keep cool and totally enjoy the ride.
On to our quest, I cleaned up the FSTAB and rebooted. Thenā¦āthatā screen. WOW! Reboot, login to a console (as root) and do some āplumbingāā¦
Everything is backā¦
Thanks so much! I have learned a lot, again.
Love you, gang
Melissa
So:
when did you decide to change that there in that way?
ā¦ I suppose I shouldnāt ask āWhy?ā
If cleaning that up cleared up the issue, you should have remembered doing it.
Iāll try to remember and not take your future issues too seriously.
Well, Linux gives me a means to look more stoically at thing. It helps me to place things in perspective.
Of course, if that had been my main box, I would probably need a tranquilizerā¦anyway, thanks for meditating with me and guiding me through this adventure