Unable to Login from UI on Fresh Installation

I’m new to Manjaro, and Arch in general. Forgive me if I sound noobish. I’ve compiled some notes to best describe my situation
and have included a section at the bottom to ask my questions. All information til that section is context to help evaluate the issue
and potentially help the SEO when others have this issue.

Describe your Issue:

  • Fresh installation of Manjaro KDE Plasma 21.2.5. No issues when using the USB trial, no issues on installation to NVME drive.
    • FWIW, I’ve used Debian/CentOS for work and personal for years, but this is my first Arch-like OS.
  • Go to Login page
    • Invalid credentials → shows that the credentials are invalid
    • Valid credentials → black screens, shows NVME information, black screens, returns to login screen

Can you TTY?

Yes. I can login to my root and personal users from TTY

DE / DM / Kernel?

  • DE: KDE Plasma
  • DM: SDDM
  • Kernel: 5.15.28-1-MANJARO

System?

I don’t want to post the entire inxi output, but here’s the specifics that I think are relevant.

CPU:
  Info: 8-core model: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 2
    rev: 0 cache: L1: 512 KiB L2: 4 MiB L3: 32 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2376 high: 3687 min/max: 2200/4559 boost: enabled
    cores: 1: 2196 2: 2126 3: 2128 4: 2050 5: 2051 6: 2053 7: 3593 8: 2051
    9: 2674 10: 2137 11: 2176 12: 2114 13: 2052 14: 2053 15: 3687 16: 2888
    bogomips: 124612
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
Graphics:
  Device-1: NVIDIA GA102 [GeForce RTX 3080 Lite Hash Rate] vendor: eVga.com.
    driver: nvidia v: 510.54 pcie: speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 0a:00.0
    chip-ID: 10de:2216
  Display: server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.0
    compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X: loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia display-ID: :1
    screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 5120x1440 s-dpi: 80
  Monitor-1: DP-4 res: 5120x1440 dpi: 130048 diag: 1mm (0.06")
  OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080/PCIe/SSE2
    v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA 510.54 direct render: Yes

mhwd?


              NAME               VERSION          FREEDRIVER           TYPE

      video-nvidia            2021.12.18               false            PCI

Diagnostics?

  • I can access TTY, and can login with the correct credentials
  • I can access the desktop after logging in with TTY and using startx
  • Once I’m in my desktop, there seems to be no issue until I log out and come back.

My questions

  • From the context I’ve gathered from similar issues, this sounds like something to do with my Nvidia drivers. Is this a conflict between SDDM and nonfree drivers?
  • If this is not a conflict between SDDM and nonfree drivers, what steps can I take to fix this?
  • Is there any particular reason that login would go back to showing my NVME path in a terminal window before resetting?
  • Is there any additional relevant debugging information that I can provide?

Are you trying to use Wayland?

I didn’t explicitly install it. I figured it was something installed from the nonfree drivers and/or system upgrades when I installed the OS.

I had an issue my theme needing an update - so one idea is to change the sddm theme - System settings → Startup and Shutdown → Login Screen - preferably using the Breeze theme as this is KDE default and as such it is supposed to work.

With relation to your NVMe information - did you use f2fs filesystem for your root filesystem? fs2fs runs a self-check when the file system loads and it could be this you are seeing as it is usually hidden by the display manager. In any case - the message is likely unrelated.

The last ISO installs Wayland and in manual login you have to select X11 as Wayland is the default (it seems due to alphabetic order). In the login screen check the lower left corner for the selector box. Does it helps to use X11?

Can you check the system’s logs with journalctl to try to spot any relevant warning/error that may indicate what the problem is?

@cfinnberg I tried your suggestion of using X11 on the login session and that fixes it. I checked my system logs and despite my default session being set to X11, Wayland was still being used. I am no longer having issues logging into my desktop normally.

@linux-aarhus I changed it to Breeze just to be safe, but I don’t seem to be having issues with any of the themes after switching to X11 from Wayland on the login page.

But, just for my own education, what is the fundamental difference between them in regards to Manjaro? I know X is just a graphics protocol and Wayland is being pushed to replace it, but how does this affect the overall Manjaro experience?

wayland itself is buggy, wayland on kde is even more buggy, and wayland on kde with nvidia is a mess - practically not usable… so in your case not using wayland increase your overall manjaro experience

I am experimenting with a kwin plasma environment. You can remove xwayland and plasma-wayland-session packages - as suggested by @omano in below topic

Upon further investigation, I’m seeing one additional issue. I’m no longer able to use the 240hz available on my monitor. I’m able to adjust the screen resolution with no issues, but I’m stuck at 60hz in the Display Configuration screen. I also confirmed this with the glxgears runner. In the preview I was able to adjust this to 60hz, 120hz, 144hz, and 240hz.

Is this just a combination of X11 + KDE + Nvidia proprietary drivers? If so, are there any steps to improve this with either the Nvidia panel or by switching from KDE to the GNOME DE?

EDITTED
Including output from xrandr because that may also help

    ~  xrandr                                                                                                                            ✔  6s  
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 5120 x 1440, maximum 32767 x 32767
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-4 connected primary 5120x1440+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 1mm x 1mm
   3840x1080     59.97 + 239.97  
   5120x1440     59.98* 
   2560x1440    239.90    59.95  
   1920x1080    239.76    60.00    59.94  
   1680x1050     59.95  
   1600x900      60.00  
   1440x900      59.89  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1280x800      59.81  
   1280x720      60.00    59.94  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   800x600       75.00    72.19    60.32    56.25  
   640x480       75.00    72.81    59.94  
DP-5 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

I have no idea - my current graphics is AMD WX7100 - but I have Nvidia Quadro P2000 as well. Perhaps I will test it - but not for the time being - too much work to do - to little time do it.

My monitor supports 240Hz as well but only if I notch down the resolution. Since I am not a gamer I go for the sreen estate @120Hz

07:07:53 fh@tiger ~ → xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 5120 x 1440, maximum 16384 x 16384
DisplayPort-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-2 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DisplayPort-3 connected primary 5120x1440+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 1190mm x 340mm
   5120x1440    120.00*+  59.98  
   3840x1080    119.97 +  59.97  
   3840x2160    120.00   119.88    60.00    50.00    59.94  
   3440x1440    120.00    59.97  
   2560x1440    120.00    59.95  
   1920x1200    120.00  
   1920x1080    120.00   119.88    60.00    60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1600x1200    120.00  
   1680x1050     59.95  
   1600x900      60.00  
   1280x1024     75.02    60.02  
   1440x900      59.89  
   1280x800      59.81  
   1152x864      75.00  
   1280x720      60.00    50.00    59.94  
   1024x768      75.03    70.07    60.00  
   832x624       74.55  
   800x600       72.19    75.00    60.32    56.25  
   720x576       50.00  
   720x480       60.00    59.94  
   640x480       75.00    72.81    66.67    60.00    59.94  
   720x400       70.08 

You’ve basically described my last several weeks of work.

I would be more than satisfied with 120hz over 60hz. I’m going to reference the thread that you recommended in a previous reply and see if I can play with graphics settings to get something higher.