My system borked again upon running the latest updates... I have a quick question

[Woods_Walker]

I have the same problem that I had 6 months ago:

Black screen after updates - error: file 'initramfs-6.5-x86_64.img' not found - BIOS complication?

In the middle of running the latest updates yesterday my system ran out of memory, I guess, and kicked me out to the login screen. It was as if I had pressed ctrl+alt+backspace. I logged back in to close down some persistent things and then went for a reboot. It was then that I was confronted by this scary message, with no access to the login screen. Reading through some threads it seems like the solution is not too difficult, using “chroot”. Of note, I have a LUKS encypted installation, and…

So, the good news is I think I can fix it I’m just a little unsure about which version of the kernel I’m installing. At the Manjaro download page the file says linux66. Is that what I use?

[cscs]

What do you mean?

That you are running an EOL kernel and need a supported one?

Then … any of those provided by mhwd-kernel (or the manjaro-settings-manager GUI) would be fine.

Though, the usual wisdom still applies - keep at least one working LTS installed at all times, silly.

To see the current state of kernels in general then look at kernel.org

[Woods_Walker]

I just run the latest stable kernel… not sure which one that is, maybe 6.7.6 according to the link you shared.

Last time I typed:

sudo pacman -Syu linux65

But this time what do I type?
(I just tried ‘linux66’ and the system did not get to login screen ).

[cscs]

What leads you to believe its the same issue?

Did you actually do the same thing - as in somehow powered off in the middle of updates?

Do you see the same errors?

What kernel do you select? 6.7 is very much alive at the moment.

So if you are using that, then it is not the same issue.

Maybe its the plymouth problem thats been posted to death ?

(in which case you can remove plymouth or allow the downgrade which might fix it)

@philm

plymouth update may cause black screens

With a newer version of plymouth than 22.02.122 you may experience an unbootable system with a black screen. This might be due to not having early KMS enabled . If you have an Nvidia GPU you could set nvidia_drm.modeset=1 nvidia_drm.fbdev=1 to the kernel parameters in your bootloader config to avoid the need of KMS. However, with Wayland around the corner, KMS will be needed.

To “fix” the current problem, we have downgraded plymouth once again to have more time to find a proper solution to migrate most of your installations to a working state with newer plymouth versions.

sudo pacman -Syuu

Those who don’t have issues can enjoy the newer version of plymouth.

Directions for adding kms to your system configuration and how you can help troubleshooting by providing some sysinfo, read more → Black Screen with Plymouth - Cause and Solution

polkit update might remove your local modified config

With polkit 124-1 there were changes made to etc/pam.d/polkit-1. So check if you made local changes to the file. See also: ropid comments on Today’s update moved polkit-1 to polkit-1.pacsave without providing a new config

bashrc-manjaro is now merged into bash

• Yes, replace bashrc-manjaro with bash
• Please also compare your:
  /etc/.bash.bashrc
  with the generated
  /etc/.bash.bashrc.pacsave
  and retrofit all of your customisations as there was no .pacnew file generated.
• Same goes for /etc/skel/.bashrc

pacman and pacman-contrib changes

pacman-contrib is now split out from pacman. If you have anything installed that depends on pacman-contrib, update (after you finished the Release Update) with:

sudo pacman -Syu pacman-contrib

That would make sense to check out if its just a random black screen that you are assuming is the same as previously.

If you actually did interrupt an upgrade then its not just the kernel thats at stake. It could be any of the packages involved in the upgrade.

See for example:

[HowTo] Recovering from an interrupted update/upgrade

Difficulty: ★★☆☆☆ So you couldn’t wait until the update process had completed and you went for the reset/power button, didn’t you? And now you’re getting the message that you don’t have a kernel installed. Well, you’re not the only one — we’re seeing it happen all the time. So, here’s how to fix it, you impatient n00b. If you don’t happen to have a recent Manjaro installer USB/DVD/CD handy, direct your browser to this wonderful page, download t…

[zbe]

@Woods_Walker

But this time what do I type?

So in 6 months you learned nothing. Congratulations.

[Woods_Walker]

@zbe

So in 6 months you learned nothing. Congratulations.

I guess so!
‘linux67’ worked for me

I think the way to avoid this problem is to close memory heavy programs like browsers and office stuff while updates run. Watching a video in a separate program is probably OK.