While trying to get rid ofthe annoying “Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A problem occured and the system can’t recover. Please log out and try again,” which was happening regularly, I foolishly followed a suggestion I found here in the forum and did an update ignoring dependencies (it worked for the poster!). Now when I boot that message appears straight away and I have lost use of my mouse (lit up, but no response). Pressing enter just brings up the same after a few moments.
I have a live usb, enabling me to access all my folders, and I’ve copied my Home folder on to another usb drive for safety.
Now I would hugely appreciate some troubleshooting advice from experienced users. (I’ve searched a lot but found nothing yet that fits my specific problem situation and my level of experience.)
In order to get help I need to provide my system details. Is there a way of getting that info via the live usb?
Where is it most likely that the problem lies? I’m not even sure if the system is booting but then hitting the problem, or the problem is with the boot process.
Help with the above would be a good start and much appreciated. I want to avoid a complete reinstallation unless it’s strictly necessary. Sledgehammers and nuts and all that!
Without error messages it’s impossible to tell. However, depending on when you last updated, it might be that the kernel is missing. Or an unmerged .pacnew file. Or perhaps something else.
Best would be to boot into a live environment and enter a chroot environment from there. Do you have full disk encryption? Or use btrfs? Because, if so, then I’m not wasting any more time explaining how to enter the chroot environment as I don’t know or have experience with it.
boot into manjaro live usb, make sure you are connected to internet, open terminal and chroot: manjaro-chroot -a
(note: this command doenst work with encryption and / or btrfs)
rerun update: pacman-mirrors -f 5 && pacman -Syyu
if there are errors post the output here, if there are no errors and you are up to date, post output from: mhwd-kernel -li && mhwd -l -li pacman -Qs nvidia ldconfig - (this should return nothing) ls /etc/modprobe.d find /etc/X11/ -name "*.conf"
I’m definitely not using encryption and don’t think I’m using btrfs, but not certain of the latter. Would it show in Gparted if I was?
This is the result of the manjaro-chroot -a command:
~ manjaro-chroot -a ✔
grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sda1. Check your device.map.
grub-probe: error: cannot find a GRUB drive for /dev/sda1. Check your device.map.
==> Mounting (ManjaroLinux) [/dev/nvme0n1p2]
--> mount: [/mnt]
--> mount: [/mnt/boot/efi]
--> mount: [/mnt/run/media/nick/Data]
mount: /mnt/run/media/nick/Data: mount point does not exist.
dmesg(1) may have more information after failed mount system call.
[manjaro-gnome /]#
Should I attempt the update? Worried by those error messages and not sure whether I am rooted into the malfunctioning system or still working from the live usb.
Edit: anxiety having settled a bit I realise /dev/sda1 is the live usb drive, so no worries there. And the Data drive is just that - a separate disk with all my major data, - Documents, Downloads, Pictures etc - symlinked from the home folder. So I’m beginning to think I am mounted to the original system and can attempt an update?
It looks as if it was successful. But before attempting the upgrade, check the installed kernel(s). From the chroot environment, run and provide the output of:
That directory would be populated when the mount occurs during boot. Since you’ve chrooted in, it’s not there. As you’ve already realised, you probably don’t need anything in there.
That’s not a good place for permanent mounts, it’s better to create /media or /data and put your mount points in there, eg /media/data.
Thanks, point noted. In the new year when I have a bit more time I’m planning to add an extra drive and will at that point probably do a fresh install and I’ll follow your advice. meanwhile though I have some urgent work to do and I need the current setup back up asap!
So it would seem you have skipped quite a few updates. So refresh the mirror and mirror list, like @brahma said:
And then attempt a full upgrade:
pamac upgrade && pamac upgrade --aur --devel || echo -e '\033[0;91mThere was an error upgrading the system. AUR packages not upgraded.\e[0m'
This will update your system and ONLY if that was successful update any AUR packages.
a Reminder: While use of the AUR is possible, it’s neither recommended nor supported.
I recommend pamac instead of pacman, especially for newcomers as pamac was developed by Manajaro (developers) for Manjaro and just takes care of more thing than pacman. For example:
In view of the output from the commands @brahma suggested, should I proceed with the full upgrade? (The echo part confuses me: is that part of the command?)
[manjaro-gnome /]# pamac upgrade && pamac upgrade --aur --devel || echo -e '\033[0;9
1mThere was an error upgrading the system. AUR packages not upgraded.\e[0m'
Warning: Building packages as dynamic user
Warning: Setting build directory to /var/cache/pamac
Preparing...
Synchronizing package databases...
Refreshing AUR...
Cloning nordvpn-bin build files...
System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate.
Failed to connect to bus: Host is down
System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate.
Failed to connect to bus: Host is down
System has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate.
Failed to connect to bus: Host is down
Error: Failed to prepare transaction: Failed to clone nordvpn-bin build files
There was an error upgrading the system. AUR packages not upgraded.
[manjaro-gnome /]#