Manjaro booting up to a black screen

Support System Updates
1

Manjaro doesn’t want to work. Every time I try booting it up it just shows a black screen. I am able to chroot into the system and have tried fixing it but have made it worse. This happened after updating my system and rebooting. I got

error: file '/boot/vmlinuz-6.9-x86_64' 
error: you need to load the kernel first

I then installed new kernels linux611 and linux66 and I couldn’t get them to appear when in the menu that lets you pick a kernel. I kept looking for solutions and for some reason I started tinkering with the display managers. I switched to sddm and got it load up the logging screen (I use lightdm) but would get “unable to contact settings server” so I kept making changes I noticed I starting get more errors when I messed with the sys link for the display-manager service and removing and reinstalling dbus packages. Checking my boot.log and I see a ton of errors all related to dbus such as

[FAILED] Failed to start D-Bus System Message Bus.

any help is appreciated.

2

First you say this is the situation:

then, later, you say:

which doesn’t really make sense
there is no point in wanting to load a display manager while you are in chroot

You have no kernel installed (linux69 is no longer available)
You went into chroot and installed linux611 and linux66 - that’s what you said.

How did you do this?

How you should do it is:

  • manjaro-chroot -a
    (… boot from USB and chroot)
  • pacman -S linux611 linux66
    (install kernels)
  • mkinitcpio -P
    (create the initrd’s for those just installed kernels as well as any you had already installed)
  • grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
    (update the Grub configuration, so you get the newly installed kernels displayed in the menu)
  • exit
  • reboot

See how that goes.

If you can still boot normally - it wasn’t entirely clear to me - your info says you are on linux610 -
you don’t need chroot
and in that case you can also use mhwd-kernel -i linux611 linux66

1 Like
4

Hardware info would be good:
inxi -zv8

I’m guessing you have an NVIDIA graphics card?
(your info says no tho that, it says AMD, which should be totally unproblematic)

In case of Nvidia I cannot be of much help, because I do not have such device and thus no experience with it.

One thing to try:
at the grub screen, press “e” for edit
and add a 3 (the number 3) at the end of the line that is starting with linux
(it’s a few lines down, it’s not the first line)
then F10 or CTRL+X to boot -
you’ll land at a TTY and can log in there and use
mhwd-kernel -i linux611 linux66
to try to fix it -
I really don’t know whether that will take care of any Nvidia driver though :man_shrugging:

You perhaps have also already tried to run a full system update.
If not - do it.

sudo pacman-mirrors -f
sudo pacman -Syu

5

We always recommend to watch the second posting in the announcement Topic for FAQ, this should help:

9

This would still be helpful.

11

Really? :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

You prefer us to further poking around in the fog? There is no confidential information in it.

12

Yes - if in doubt what may be useful, provide it all.
It’s just a simple copy and paste job.
Then highlight all of it and format using the </> button in the edit window.
… so it looks like the terminal output that you got …

14

Can you please re-do it - not from within chroot, but just from the live system.
It will get rid of all the random “12” everywhere …

16

I Just posted this also for the future, if you switch for Kernels in the right time and delete the old EOL Kernel before you doing this update, you wouldn’t face this problem and you could evade it fully.

With a Timeshift snapshot, you can also help yourself in future, if you face a problem like this.

17

If you can chroot - as you did - you had to have used a live system …
Just boot it - don’t chroot yet, then do the command.

20

much better, actually readable now :sunglasses:

now:

chroot (manjaro-chroot) - then:

and reinstall kernels like described above

What is the resulting response/output?
Any errors?

21

You obviously dual boot together with Windoze, this should be mentioned when asking for help.

24

… again just paraphrasing the output you think is relevant - not all of it …
It can’t be that many lines …

are the kernels installed?

if yes - mkinitcpio ... and grub-mkgonfig ... (see above)

with output, please

(you need to be in chroot … and you don’t need sudo when in chroot - you are already root)

instead of:

pacman-mirrors -f

try:
pacman-mirrors -c Germany

or any country you like …

26

I shorthened the commands in my last post - I trusted that you’d refer to the actual complete commands I wrote further up:

I see only linux610 present.

I thought you installed linux611 and linux66.

… that’s what happens with partial, incomplete information -
we can’t see what you see
and if you need help, you need to let us see what you see

28

… and what about
mkinitcpio -P
?

The initrd’s need to be present - that is what the boot starts with

31

And what was the result?

This command comes AFTER
mkinitcpio -P

… first generate the initrd
then recreate the grub config …

33

this is the command
(in chroot …)

mkinitcpio -P

in my first post was a list of steps in order - with short explanation what each command does

35

looks good to me

even though you reversed the order of the commands

first:
mkinitcpio -P

then:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

exit
to exit chroot - reboot and check the result

37

Have you tried this?

… instead of the above, the following might be easier:

→ boot from usb again and chroot
then:
systemctl disable lightdm.service

and, for good measure and because we can’t be sure of the result of you switching to sddm
systemctl disable sddm.service
as well

exit
reboot

You should land at a text prompt - because either one display manager will then be disabled.

If you do get there
(do you?) -
→ log in
and try:
startxfce4

It’s easy to enable the display manager later.

38

Something is not right. What is the output from

pacman -Qkk libvlc upower webkit2gtk{,-4.1}