Lightdm fails to start on Raspberry pi zero

ARM Technical Assistance
1

Hey guys. I’m experiencing a problem with my Raspberry Pi Zero 2 w not loading Lightdm. I normally use this pi headless.

 systemctl --failed
  UNIT            LOAD   ACTIVE SUB    DESCRIPTION
● lightdm.service loaded failed failed Light Display Manager


lightdm --test-mode --debug
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Logging to /home/joel/.cache/lightdm/log/lightdm.log
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Starting Light Display Manager 1.30.0, UID=1000 PID=499
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration dirs from /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration dirs from /usr/local/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration dirs from /etc/xdg/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Loading configuration from /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
[+0.00s] DEBUG: Running in user mode
[+0.01s] DEBUG: Registered seat module local
[+0.01s] DEBUG: Registered seat module xremote
[+0.01s] DEBUG: Using D-Bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.17s] DEBUG: _g_io_module_get_default: Found default implementation gvfs (GDaemonVfs) for ?gio-vfs?
[+0.19s] DEBUG: Monitoring logind for seats
[+0.19s] DEBUG: New seat added from logind: seat0
[+0.19s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Loading properties from config section Seat:*
[+0.19s] DEBUG: Seat seat0 has property CanMultiSession=no
[+0.19s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Starting
[+0.19s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Creating greeter session
[+0.19s] WARNING: Error getting user list from org.freedesktop.Accounts: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.Accounts was not provided by any .service files
[+0.19s] DEBUG: Loading user config from /etc/lightdm/users.conf
[+0.20s] DEBUG: User joel added
[+0.21s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Creating display server of type x
[+0.22s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Starting local X display
[+0.22s] DEBUG: XServer 0: Logging to /home/joel/.cache/lightdm/log/x-0.log
[+0.22s] DEBUG: XServer 0: Writing X server authority to /run/lightdm/root/:0
[+0.22s] WARNING: Error reading existing Xauthority: Failed to open file ?/run/lightdm/root/:0?: Permission denied
[+0.22s] WARNING: XServer 0: Failed to write authority: Failed to open X authority /run/lightdm/root/:0: Permission denied
[+0.22s] DEBUG: XServer 0: Launching X Server
[+0.22s] DEBUG: Launching process 513: /usr/bin/X :0 -seat seat0 -auth /run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp
[+0.22s] DEBUG: XServer 0: Waiting for ready signal from X server :0
[+0.22s] DEBUG: Acquired bus name org.freedesktop.DisplayManager
[+0.22s] DEBUG: Registering seat with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Seat0
[+0.23s] WARNING: Could not enumerate user data directory /var/lib/lightdm-data: Error opening directory '/var/lib/lightdm-data': Permission denied
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Process 513 exited with return value 1
[+0.24s] DEBUG: XServer 0: X server stopped
[+0.24s] DEBUG: XServer 0: Removing X server authority /run/lightdm/root/:0
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Display server stopped
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Stopping session
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Session stopped
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Stopping display server, no sessions require it
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Stopping; greeter display server failed to start
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Stopping
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Stopped
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Required seat has stopped
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Stopping display manager
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Display manager stopped
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Stopping daemon
[+0.24s] DEBUG: Exiting with return value 1
2

Have you seen this? Seems like a current bug that only affects manjaro.
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/after-stable-update-2021-09-24-lightdm-no-longer-automatically-start/84021/57

3

I do not believe that is his issue. If there was a bug there would be several posts here on it since that link is a month old. My lightdm has been working on my pi and just did the latest upgrade on testing and lightdm is still working. My lightdm conf has not been touched.

[ray@pi4 ~]$ systemctl status lightdm
● lightdm.service - Light Display Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-12-08 06:18:49 CST; 2min 0s ago
       Docs: man:lightdm(1)
   Main PID: 440 (lightdm)
      Tasks: 5 (limit: 8743)
        CPU: 2.488s
     CGroup: /system.slice/lightdm.service
             ├─440 /usr/bin/lightdm
             └─475 /usr/lib/Xorg :0 -seat seat0 -auth /run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -novtswitch

@Jtyle6 what does your config.txt say.

4

My confg.txt looks like this

cat /boot/config.txt
# See /boot/overlays/README for all available options

#gpu_mem=64
initramfs initramfs-linux.img followkernel
kernel=kernel8.img
arm_64bit=1
disable_overscan=1

#enable sound
dtparam=audio=on
#hdmi_drive=2

#enable vc4
#dtoverlay=vc4-fkms-v3d
max_framebuffers=2
disable_splash=1
dtparam=krnbt=on

And my systemctl status lightdm looks like this…

systemctl status lightdm
× lightdm.service - Light Display Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Wed 2021-12-08 19:00:18 AEST; 4h 15min ago
       Docs: man:lightdm(1)
    Process: 387 ExecStart=/usr/bin/lightdm (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
   Main PID: 387 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
        CPU: 191ms

Dec 08 19:00:18 pizero2 systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at>Dec 08 19:00:18 pizero2 systemd[1]: Stopped Light Display Manager.
Dec 08 19:00:18 pizero2 systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Dec 08 19:00:18 pizero2 systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Dec 08 19:00:18 pizero2 systemd[1]: Failed to start Light Display Manager.
lines 1-13/13 (END)
5

Do you have xf86-video-fbdev installed? If not install it and also comment out like this on this line in config.txt:

#max_framebuffers=2

Added:

You should also increase the gpu_mem a little if the default is not enough when you reach the DE and mess around some. Web browsers might be frustrating to mess with, with the low ram on the board.

gpu_mem=128

Also make sure you have lightdm-gtk-greeter is installed.

The board is probably not a good choice for using a DE.

6

Just installed the xf86-video-fbdev and commented out the max_framebuffers=2

And by the looks of the current

lightdm.service - Light Display Manager
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Wed 2021-12-08 23:28:19 AEST; 17s ago
       Docs: man:lightdm(1)
   Main PID: 346 (lightdm)
      Tasks: 6 (limit: 401)
        CPU: 1.388s
     CGroup: /system.slice/lightdm.service
             ├─346 /usr/bin/lightdm
             ├─355 /usr/lib/Xorg :0 -seat seat0 -auth /run/lightdm/root/:0 -nolisten tcp vt7 -nov>             └─545 lightdm --session-child 14 21

Dec 08 23:28:19 pizero2 systemd[1]: Starting Light Display Manager...
Dec 08 23:28:19 pizero2 systemd[1]: Started Light Display Manager.
Dec 08 23:28:19 pizero2 lightdm[346]: Error getting user list from org.freedesktop.Accounts: GDBu>Dec 08 23:28:24 pizero2 lightdm[380]: Error getting user list from org.freedesktop.Accounts: GDBu>Dec 08 23:28:24 pizero2 lightdm[380]: pam_unix(lightdm-greeter:session): session opened for user >~
~

Looks to be working. I’m thinking of installing the minimal os soon.

7

Unfortunately. I don’t know if this would work for the arm architecture.

8

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