People do adopt differing variations of commands; for example, the procedure I use appears next, for reference; it’s a good idea to check for a lock file; this is what I do:
An update check might still be running in the background, and a db.lck file is created to prevent you from interfering with the currently running process.
Sometimes, the lock file isn’t removed gracefully.
1. Check whether a lock file exists;
lsof /var/lib/pacman/db.lck
If the output of the command is similar to:
lsof: status error on /var/lib/pacman/db.lck: no such file or directory
then the problem lies elsewhere.
2. If no output is returned at all, then a lock file likely remains set, and you can delete it with the following command:
sudo rm /var/lib/pacman/db.lck
Your update command output shows there is nothing to do which usually infers the update has completed, though it did note a warning abaut gnome-wallpapers which is likely nothing to be concerned about.
So, that tells me the updated files are likely OK, and the problem is elsewhere.
An updated ISO is now available for Manjaro 25.0.1.
It may be prudent to download and use this new ISO instead. While I don’t have information immediately available I suspect some changes related to the Nvidia driver were made.
As you will have noticed, “black screens” have been reported separately from your issue, so if the new ISO does address that issue, then it is likely better to use it, going forward.
Yes, that can allow one to reach a minimal system. This is useful if there isn’t a Manjaro ISO available to boot with, for example.
Again, I cannot reiterate this enough - we don’t know what damage you may have caused by peforming a hard shutdown before the sync/update completed. Because of this, all that can be done is to follow general troubleshooting steps in hopes that one of them will have success.
It’s important to note that a full reinstallation might ultimately prove to be the fastest option to return to a working system; though, the age of your (gen6) mainboard might present some difficulties. An updated BIOS might indeed be beneficial before a reinstall.
Your system is running kernel 6.12 (LTS) which is usually fine, however, given the age of the board and the lack of UEFI I’m wondering whether an older kernel might be more appropriate. This might be an important consideration if you should decide to reinstall your system.
Otherwise, at this time, I have nothing concrete to suggest.
Regards.