Something is just breaking my installation

Hello everyone,
Yesterday morning I updated some packages through pacman -Syu. And when I rebootes the computer, the system loaded grub but didn’t load anything else after the “blocks and files” screen.

I tried to recover, but as long as there were no important files, I decided to just reinstall manjaro over. Did the installation, the computer reseted, updated packages, and after another reset, the same problem happened again.

And later on, after a new reinstall, the problem happened for the third time. What could possibly be causing this? I never saw something like this before.

Welcome here, @johnmantovani :wave:

Please boot the live ISO, open a terminal window, enter

inxi -Fza

and post the result here.

System:    Kernel: 5.13.19-2-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-x86_64 lang=pt_BR keytable=br tz=UTC misobasedir=manjaro
           misolabel=MANJARO_KDE_2116 quiet systemd.show_status=1 apparmor=1 security=apparmor driver=nonfree
           nouveau.modeset=0 i915.modeset=1 radeon.modeset=1
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.22.5 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 vt: 1 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:   Type: Desktop Mobo: ASUSTeK model: TUF H310M-PLUS GAMING/BR v: Rev X.0x serial: <filter>
           UEFI: American Megatrends v: 2811 date: 05/27/2020
CPU:       Info: 6-Core model: Intel Core i5-9400F bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Kaby Lake note: check family: 6
           model-id: 9E (158) stepping: A (10) microcode: EA cache: L2: 9 MiB
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 34814
           Speed: 800 MHz min/max: 800/4100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800 5: 800 6: 800
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT disabled
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT disabled
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
           Type: spectre_v2
           mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
           Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:  Device-1: NVIDIA GK208B [GeForce GT 730] vendor: eVga. com. driver: nvidia v: 470.63.01
           alternate: nouveau,nvidia_drm bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 10de:1287 class-ID: 0300
           Display: x11 server: X. Org 1.20.13 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: nvidia display-ID: :0 screens: 1
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1280x1024 s-dpi: 95 s-size: 342x271mm (13.5x10.7") s-diag: 436mm (17.2")
           Monitor-1: VGA-0 res: 1280x1024 hz: 60 dpi: 96 size: 338x270mm (13.3x10.6") diag: 433mm (17")
           OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GT 730/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 470.63.01 direct render: Yes
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Cannon Lake PCH cAVS vendor: ASUSTeK driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
           alternate: snd_soc_skl,snd_sof_pci_intel_cnl bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a348 class-ID: 0403
           Device-2: NVIDIA GK208 HDMI/DP Audio vendor: eVga .com. driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1
           chip-ID: 10de:0e0f class-ID: 0403
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.13.19-2-MANJARO running: yes
           Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no
           Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
           Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.38 running: yes
Network:   Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: ASUSTeK driver: e1000e v: kernel port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6
           chip-ID: 8086:15bc class-ID: 0200
           IF: eno1 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 1.15 TiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Gigabyte model: GP-GSM2NE3256GNTD size: 238.47 GiB block-size:
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: EDFM00.5
           temp: 16.9 C scheme: GPT
           ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Seagate model: ST1000DM010-2EP102 size: 931.51 GiB block-size:
           physical: 4096 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: HDD rpm: 7200 serial: <filter> rev: CC43 scheme: GPT
           ID-3: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB vendor: Kingston model: DT 101 G2 size: 7.46 GiB block-size:
           physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: N/A serial: <filter> rev: PMAP scheme: MBR
           SMART Message: Unknown USB bridge. Flash drive/Unsupported enclosure?
Partition: Message: No partition data found.
Swap:      Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 27.8 C mobo: N/A gpu: nvidia temp: 39 C
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A gpu: nvidia fan: 30%
Info:      Processes: 223 Uptime: 1m wakeups: 0 Memory: 7.69 GiB used: 2.49 GiB (32.3%) Init: systemd v: 249
           tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: N/A Packages: pacman: 1229 lib: 331 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 5.1.8
           running-in: yakuake inxi: 3.3.07

Does the computer boot after fresh installtion and no updates after that ?

Hello @johnmantovani :wink:

In most cases if that happens, it must be the nvidia driver if a nvidia card is in use.

So probably you could solve this problem by adding the nvidia modules to the image:

File: /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

MODULES=(nvidia nvidia_modeset nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm)

and run:

sudo mkinitcpio -P && sudo update-grub

That is always what I do with optional modules and had never a problem with nvidia so far.

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It boots. But after I update the packages, it stops booting

Kernel 5.13 is EOL. So, what I think is happening, is that it installs fine from the install media so everything works. But when the update happens, it tries to update/install all kinds of non-existent things.

I suggest you reinstall again, but don’t update immediately. Instead, once rebooted, open the terminal and install a valid kernel. I suggest version 5.10 and/or 5.15:

mhwd-kernel --install linux510

for kernel version 5.10, and

mhwd-kernel --install linux515

to install version 5.15.

When done reboot.

Don’t forget to remove version 5.13 when rebooted:

mhwd-kernel --remove linux513

Edit:

Alternatively you can just download and install from a new ISO.

P.S.:

I also recommend using pamac to update, instead of pacman:

pamac upgrade

This is because pamac is built by Manjaro for Manjaro.

Hope this helps!

I’ve implemented both solutions: the nvidia profile and the kernel update. Now it seems to be working fine. I hope that it remains fine for the next days. Thank you so much for everyone!

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