Kernel not found after reboot

[noah1]

Hey everyone,

I was just using my Razer Blade 14 running the latest Manjaro with an i3 Desktop environment. I noticed my machine being less responsive, even when opening “trivial” applications eg Thunar File manager. Decided to do a reboot via running “reboot” in a terminal and my machine suddenly greets me with the following error message:

error: file `/boot/vmlinuz-5.15-x86_64’ not found.
error: you need to load the kernel first.

Anyone have an idea what might have happened?

Any help is much appreciated as this machines ssd contains all my university projects.

Thanks so much in advance!

[cscs]

@noah1

error: file `/boot/vmlinuz-5.15-x86_64’ not found.
error: you need to load the kernel first.

Seems an upgrade was interrupted or did not finish properly … or … something

[HowTo] Resolve an unbootable Manjaro (black screen, login failed, cant boot, etc)

When we have problems gaining access to our systems it is difficult to gather information, let alone fix any problems. Here we will cover common causes and solutions to ‘manjaro wont boot’. TTY If your desktop does not load properly then you might still be able to use most, if not all, functionality by dropping to a non-graphical TTY. By default your system will have multiple TTYs, with each corresponding to an Fx key. Your desktop is assigned to one as well - most often F1. You can chang…

You will likely need to use manjaro-chroot … once interacting with the installed system you should be able to do

sudo mhwd-kernel -i linux515

and/or

sudo pacman -Syu linux515

[noah1]

Thank you for the quick and detailed instructions. Through a bootable USB and manjaro-chroot -a I am now able to interact with my old installation. However, when running

sudo mhwd-kernel -i linux515

or

sudo pacman -Syu linux515

I get

error: failed to synchronize all databases (unable to lock database)

Any idea how to fix that?

Cheers

[Wollie]

In manjaro-chroot environment try

rm /var/lib/pacman/db.lck
pamac upgrade --enable-downgrade --force-refresh
pacman -Syyu linux515

[noah1]

Thank you @cscs and @Wollie! That did the trick. Just successfully logged into my old installation.

Sidenote for novices like myself: after you have booted from your live USB, make sure to establish an internet connection first. Otherwise pacman will not be able to connect to the relevant hosts.