What do I do if Manjaro ends in a black screen after startup?

Yes, what should you do if manjaro doesn’t start after an update or the startup ends in a black screen?

Taking a backup of the system is in itself very important, I do this frequently. But how do you access this backup when you are stuck on a black screen and can’t get into the system?

As some of you know! I have had a few such cases last year and one already this year after a new manjaro update. I have read that these crashes after new updates have something to do with the nvidia driver! Well, that’s what I have read somewhere in here, but don’t know much about this myself.

However, I also installed manjaro kde plasma on my new Dell laptop, but instead I will install the xfce version of manjaro on it to save as much resources as possible, as I will use it for music live performance on youtube with obs and the usb-yamaha mixer.

Since Microsoft is ending support for Win10 on October 15th this year, I am becoming more dependent on Linux than ever before, as all three of my computers are not compatible with Win11.

Therefore, I have begun my preventive research and learning about recovering from possible problems with Manjaro! Yes, what do you do if the accident is there?

This is also important for further developing my Norwegian howto pages on linux-helt-enkelt.se

I think this answers your questions:

And/or:

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That’s why you need to keep a Ventoy USB stick with a Manjao ISO handy. It contains all the tools tto diagnose the problem and to restore your backup.

Ventoy USB stick? that is that?

Maybe just the display manager doesn’t start/work?
Try switching to a TTY.

If you can’t get to a TTY when you boot your system, you need to boot using a live system like the one you used to install the system in the first place.

Then you can chroot into your defunct system and repair it.

A USB drive prepared with Ventoy and a Manjaro ISO on it is one way to do that.

Is there no way to take a total mirror image of Manjaro to revert the system back to the last working one via a USB stick or external hard drive?

Only if you installed your system on a btrfs filesystem and made a btrfs snapshot by way of snapper or timeshift.

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You can use clonezilla to create a cold backup

Clonezilla its a consol program or?

console - yes
but still menu driven

Clonezilla - Screenshots and Photos

I have get it upp, but not eacy to understand then.

I try to start vid first line, but that the prosess its and that the program do, i dont understand!

I thought you spoke of clonezilla …

You may not need it - as I said.
Try getting to a TTY - or boot a Manjaro live ISO to get to the defunct system and repair it if that fails.

There are also other ways to back up your data.

Ok, thats its TTY and how i use live usb off manjaro if some hapend to rep?

If that is a TTY … you ran some command.

If you want step by step help you need to tell us every step you took to get to see what you see.
So we can know how you got to where you now are.

Avoid posting pictures …

I don’t see any easy ways to recover a manjaro system, not something I understand at all!

Isn’t there any software that can make an exact copy of the entire system and create a new iso that can later be installed as a new installation, but which exactly restores everything to how it was before, as you can for example with the ubuntu distros? make a own linux etc…

I don’t know that Ubuntu can do this - MX Linux has got a tool for this - but it requires a working MX Linux system, not a defunct one.

So, the general answer is: No

That is what snapshots are for - to be able to easily go back to a point where the system was working.

If you don’t have a snapshot to go back to, you can boot a live ISO and chroot -
if you can’t simply do it by booting normally and going to a TTY.

With the live system you can also access and back up your data in /home
and then reinstall and play back the backup.

ps:
I don’t know how my answer here was a solution to your problem. :man_shrugging:
Would you care to tell?

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Yes, I think this is the easiest and safest way to do this, if you can’t boot/enter the system normally.

But if I have made a copy of the system with Timeshift in Manjaro, can I use Timeshift from the live usb to recover the system?

If you have Timeshift snapshots then: good for you!
Use them.

Can’t tell you how, though.
Have never done it/have to do it.