Manjaro GNOME 25.0.10 won't boot in Virtualbox VM

mkb · 26 October 2025 22:48

I’ve checked the ‘testing’ and ‘unstable’ branches in a virtualbox VM over the last months but nowadays run into problems. The current Manjaro stable branch (GNOME 48.5) is running fine in virtualbox but as soon as I switch branch to ‘testing’ or ‘unstable’ in the VM, Manjaro refuses to boot into GNOME and ends up at a white crash screen with a logout button (like this one).

I’ve booted to the VM text prompt (runlevel 3) and checked its journal to find out, GNOME is always coredumping. I’ll add a recent journal file below in case anyone can make sense of it.

vb_mkb_journal.log (using 0x0.st pastebin service)

Is this a Virtualbox problem or is this a bad omen for the upcoming 25.1.0 (‘Anh-Linh’) release?

I’ve already tried switching back to ‘VMSVGA’ virtualbox GPU but GNOME coredumps with it as well as with ‘VBoxSVGA’. Am I missing something or is it maybe a problem to run a newer GNOME version inside a VM running on an older GNOME version? I’m running ‘stable’ on my host/PC.

Yochanan · 27 October 2025 17:37

Can’t reproduce with the manjaro-gnome-25.0.10-251013-linux612.iso using GNOME Boxes switching to the unstable branch.

By the way, your log mentions Mutter 48.2 whilst the testing & unstable branches have 49.1.1. Also the latter only supports Wayland sessions.

Okt 26 15:09:23 mkb-virtualbox systemd[651]: Started GNOME Session Manager (session: gnome).
Okt 26 15:09:23 mkb-virtualbox systemd[651]: Reached target GNOME Session Manager is ready.
Okt 26 15:09:23 mkb-virtualbox systemd[651]: GNOME Shell on Wayland was skipped because of an unmet condition check (ConditionEnvironment=XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland).
Okt 26 15:09:23 mkb-virtualbox systemd[651]: Starting GNOME Shell on X11...
Okt 26 15:09:23 mkb-virtualbox gnome-shell[784]: Running GNOME Shell (using mutter 48.5) as a X11 window and compositing manager

philm · 28 October 2025 15:21

Did you try to use 3D Acceleration feature? Might be needed for wayland.

soundofthunder · 28 October 2025 22:16

Forgive me if this seems obvious…

After switching to Testing or Unstable did you also perform a sync/update before rebooting? This would ensure that your system was fully updated according to that particular branch.

If not, and if there remains a mix of expected package versions, then the likelihood of problems such as this is greater; especially in cases where system packages might be among the dependencies.

mkb · 10 November 2025 16:32

First of all, sorry for answering so late. I ran a couple of tests over the last two weeks but have to admit I’m at my wit’s end.

I’ve followed this guide for installing Manjaro into a VM. It advises to change to “VBoxSVGA” to avoid scaling issues but this mode doesn’t allow for 3D Acceleration (setting is greyed out). So I changed it back to “VMSVGA” and enabled 3D Acceleration (256MB GPU Memory).

After several tests/new installs with manjaro-gnome-25.0.10-251013-linux612.isoI can report Manjaro GNOME always crashes with the aforementioned white screen as soon as I switch branch to ‘testing’ no matter what kind of GPU is configured even with 3D acceleration being enabled. Manjaro stable also always runs in a X11 session.

At this point I was already giving up on VirtualBox/the whole project but decided to give GNOME BOXES a chance.

I’ve created a new install based on manjaro-gnome-25.0.10-251013-linux612.iso and enabled 3D acceleration but it also only comes up in X11 mode according to echo $XDG_SESSION_TYPE.

I tried to dig a little deeper and finally came up with commenting outWaylandEnable=false in /etc/gdm/custom.conf. Finally the GNOME stable VM install started in a Wayland session.

As soon as I switched to ‘testing’ branch though, GNOME started acting up again and crashing with “White screen of death”. That’s where I am at right now. I have no real clue why GNOME keeps crashing out, but I was able to extract the system journal for the crash in case someone is interested and uploaded it to 0x0.st.

journal_gbox_251108.txt (~ 1.2 MB)

I’m not very good with digging deep into those journals but it seems it all starts to get wrong at:

Nov 08 06:07:11 mkb-gbox gnome-shell[808]: JS ERROR: Gio.IOErrorEnum: TypeError: this._weatherApp.app_info.has_key is not a function
                                           
                                           Stack trace:
                                             _onInstalledChanged@resource:///org/gnome/shell/misc/weather.js:192:53
                                             WeatherClient@resource:///org/gnome/shell/misc/weather.js:108:14
                                             _init@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/dateMenu.js:552:31
                                             WeatherSection@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/dateMenu.js:544:1
                                             _init@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/dateMenu.js:970:29
                                             ButtonBox@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/panelMenu.js:10:1
                                             PanelMenuButton@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/panelMenu.js:95:4
                                             DateMenuButton@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/dateMenu.js:863:1
                                             _ensureIndicator@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/panel.js:899:25
                                             _updateBox@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/panel.js:910:34
                                             _updatePanel@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/panel.js:863:14
                                             _init@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/panel.js:688:14
                                             Panel@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/panel.js:644:1
                                             _initializeUI@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/main.js:247:13
                                             start@resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/main.js:181:11
                                             @resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/init.js:12:47
                                             @resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/init.js:21:20
                                             
                                           @resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/init.js:21:20
Nov 08 06:07:11 mkb-gbox gnome-shell[808]: Execution of main.js threw exception: Module resource:///org/gnome/shell/ui/init.js threw an exception
Nov 08 06:07:11 mkb-gbox gnome-shell[808]: free(): invalid pointer
Nov 08 06:07:11 mkb-gbox gnome-shell[808]: == Stack trace for context 0x5556714b1880 ==
Nov 08 06:07:11 mkb-gbox systemd-coredump[877]: Process 808 (gnome-shell) of user 1000 terminated abnormally with signal 6/ABRT, processing...
Nov 08 06:07:11 mkb-gbox systemd[1]: Created slice Slice /system/systemd-coredump.

I always follow the Manjaro wiki for switching branches.

sudo pacman-mirrors -c Germany
sudo pacman-mirrors --api --set-branch testing
sudo pacman -Syu

soundofthunder · 10 November 2025 16:50

Wayland has very recently become the default for GNOME. Whether that has any bearing on this issue, I can’t say, but it might be worth tugging at that thread a little.

I note that 3D acceleration produces an error no matter which graphic controller is used. Perhaps try it without.

I’m installing the same GNOME version now to see if the issue is replicated. (Booting the ISO with open source drivers). Let’s see what this reveals, if anything.

Did you choose ext4 or btrfs?
How much RAM / swap?

mkb · 10 November 2025 16:55

I only enabled 3D acceleration because @philm suggested it further up. Before that I ran all Virtualbox VMs without 3D acceleration but GNOME crashed no matter what.

I realize now I might not had the test case of running in GNOME BOXES with Wayland enabled and 3D Acceleration disabled. So thanks for the tip. I might give it a try the next days.

mkb · 10 November 2025 16:56

ext4 , 8 CPUs, 4GiB memory, 25 GB disk space, no swap.

Same. I’m running an AMD RX6600, so I always start with open source drivers.

soundofthunder · 10 November 2025 17:06

Using RX-580 here, but that shouldn’t make any difference with the VM.

OK it installed and firstrun seems fine – the only difference is that I allocated much more than 25 GB.

I’ll perform an update then switch to Testing.

mkb · 10 November 2025 17:08

The first run has never been a problem. GNOME stable always runs perfectly in the VM. Switching to ‘testing’ branch is when the problems start/GNOME keeps coredumping for me.

soundofthunder · 10 November 2025 17:11

Yes, I understand; just keeping you updated.
The mirrors are taking a minute.

Updating now, in Testing. When that finishes I’ll shutdown and boot cold.

mkb · 10 November 2025 17:15

I know. Even the german mirrors reported several 404 errors for me over the last days. I think it always takes two to three days for the german mirrors when a new ‘testing’ upgrade has been released. Seems to be the case since the testing channel lists a new [Testing Update] 2025-11-10.

soundofthunder · 10 November 2025 17:22

This is taking longer than I expected, but finished now.
Let’s see if it starts.

And it does, without issue.

As said, the only difference is that I allocated more disk space. Perhaps that could be a factor, but here, there doesn’t seem to be a problem.

Is it possible the VM could be damaged?
Running out of space on the host?

mkb · 10 November 2025 17:25

Thanks for testing

Damn, why does my system keep acting up. Maybe a case of Gremlins? Like I said, I’m running out of ideas but I’ll give it another try once the new ‘testing’ upgrade arrives on the german mirrors.

Good idea. I’ll redownload the .iso before any new tests. No disk space issues on the host. It’s a 1TB Nvme and only 15% of the space is used. Over 700 GB free disk space.

soundofthunder · 10 November 2025 17:27

It seems all I can do is wish you luck.

Aragorn · 10 November 2025 17:29

This might be a silly question, but are your virtual machine images hosted on btrfs by any chance? If so, did you disable copy-on-write and compression for those images?

mkb · 10 November 2025 17:30

No btrfs on host or VM. All is running on ext4.

mkb · 10 November 2025 17:37

Is gnome-weather installed and running on your VM? That the app which seems to crash gdm in my VM according to the journal.

this._weatherApp.app_info.has_key is not a function

soundofthunder · 10 November 2025 17:44

Weather seems to run just fine; the city/country search doesn’t trigger anything either.

Perhaps you can try removing it and installing it again (not a reinstall).

Can you boot far enough to login via TTY? Either that, or boot with the ISO and then chroot.

philm · 10 November 2025 23:19

Switching to testing is currently not recommended as there we will have GNOME 49 which dropped X11 support on our builds. Virtualbox VMs are a little more trickier to handle with Wayland only sessions. Gnome Boxes is your friend here, as it was designed Wayland first … For the brave ones, you may want to test the daily builds of Manjaro GNOME: Releases · manjaro-gnome/download · GitHub