Guess I was missing last character when copying the command from terminal to forum.
My focus is that WM fail to start if it has that config file present. That leads me thinking it is a config issue.
Any way to get more logging from WM startup?
I donāt know about it.
How about that?
ā¦ you are sure? - you didnāt share ā¦
We are blind here - if you need help ā¦ share
If your shell startup files are ok - they come from /etc/skel when you create a new user -
I have no clue.
How do you create a new user - to test with whether itāll work there?
One idea:
if you (temporarily) disable the display manager
systemctl disable lightdm.service
systemctl stop lightdm.service
you then land on a TTY - log in, and run
startxfce4
then you should get some text output - but I donāt know how to capture it
I guess youāll have to be a quick reader 
ā¦ just kidding: simply log out of the session and youāll be back at the TTY you started from and see the output
systemctl enable lightdm.service
to re-enable the service ā¦
Owner is test8:test8
Permissions are rw?rw?rw? (? to show that some has x, some has not - directories)
I create new users using Manjaro Settings Manager.
WIll try to disable lightdmā¦
I see a lot of
warning: could not resolve keysym xxxx
xxx includes: XF86CameraAccessToggle, XF86NextElement, XF86PreviousElement, AutopilotEngageToggle, XF86MarkWaypoint, XF86Sos, XF86NavChart, XF86FishingChartā¦ and many more.
And I see:
** (xiccd:28673): CRITICAL **: 12.23.23.718: failed to create colord device: failed to obtain org.freedesktop.color-manager.create-device auth
** (light-locker:20708): ERROR **: 12.23.24:360: Environment variable XDG_SESSION_PATH not set. Is LightDM running?
Turns out there is no longer a scroll function in tty. Will try again, try to catch output in a file...
Another possible solution;
ā only if your /home is on a separate partition:
- Boot from the latest available Manjaro installer, and reinstall using the manual partitioning method.
- Adjust the sizes of all other partitions as needed; do not format
/home. - Finish reinstalling, reboot, enjoy Manjaro.
Cheers.
There never was one - you can scroll command output, but not the TTY itself.
Itās not important anyway. There are only xorg messages.
The point of the exercise was to see:
does it work differently without lightdm, does it make a difference?
Your chown -R command is useless - the user has got the permissions anyway.
Adding group and others doesnāt help anything.
As suggested previously, perhaps a clue is here:
LANG=C ls -al /etc/skel
LANG=C ls -al /etc/skel/.config
it looks like this in my system:
(the templates for the shell startup files are here)
LANG=C ls -al /etc/skel
total 60
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Feb 21 22:19 .
drwxr-xr-x 108 root root 12288 Apr 5 13:03 ..
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 100 Oct 30 2017 .Xclients
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 21 Jan 23 22:22 .bash_logout
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 57 Jan 23 22:22 .bash_profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3270 Jan 23 22:22 .bashrc
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Feb 18 15:36 .config
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 4855 Oct 30 2017 .dir_colors
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 53 Jul 24 2023 .nanorc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 141 Feb 16 02:52 .profile
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1508 Feb 16 02:52 .xinitrc
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 382 Jul 25 2023 .zshrc
and
LANG=C ls -al /etc/skel/.config
total 44
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 Feb 18 15:36 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Feb 21 22:19 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 18 15:36 Kvantum
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 18 15:36 Thunar
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Mar 2 20:40 autostart
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 Aug 16 2022 falkon
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 18 15:36 gtk-2.0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 293 Feb 16 02:52 mimeapps.list
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 18 15:36 qt5ct
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 18 15:36 volumeicon
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 4096 Feb 18 15:36 xfce4
I ran
$ startxfce4 1>xfce-log.log 2>xfce-err.log
I did it twice - with and without the xfwm4.xml.
The difference in xfce-err.log is that with the xfwm4.xml present, the following lines are included:
(xfwm4:29776): Gdk-WARNING **: 12:50:05.946: The program 'xfwm4' received an X Window System error.
This probably reflects a bug in the program.
The error was 'BadValue (integer parameter out of range for operation)'.
(Details: serial 2700 error_code 2 request_code 151 (GLX) minor_code 24)
(Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
To debug your program, run it with the GDK_SYNCHRONIZE environment
variable to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error() function.)
xfsettingsd: No window manager registered on screen 0.
xfce4-panel: No window manager registered on screen 0. To start the panel without this check, run with --disable-wm-check.
That is basically the same as found in .xsessions-errors
# cd /etc/skel/.config
# ls -al
returns same as yours, same permissions, different timestamps. In addition I have
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 apr. 3 23:39 vlc
# cd /etc/skel
# ls -al
returns same as yours, same permissions, different timestamps.
I suspect thatās what I will doā¦ And possible it wonāt help. Iām starting to think this is caused by some hardware no longer supported.
If you do, please use the latest available Manjaro installer; this alone could make all the difference by avoiding potential complication with older packages.
Cheers.
Will the installer environment use same drivers as what will be installed? (Is a working installer environment a confirmation that the installed environment will work?)
Iām currently at a location with slow internet via mobile phone hotspot (barely any LTE reception). Is there a way to install without downloading more than actually needed?
(I see an installer iso that is over 2.7GB - 3.5GB. On top of that I expect 3GB to be downloaded during the installation. Iād suspect that what is downloaded during installation is already in the iso running the installer environment. Is there a way to make the installer use packages that is already in the iso?)
I believe the installer already does that; at least, up until the first update is performed. The latest release ISO is usually recommended to avoid many issues. If you are using a 6-month-old ISO to install (or repair) Manjaro, for example, there is no wonder that you might have problems of some kind.
Required updates are frequent, and can also vary in size (anywhere between 1GB to 8GB is likely); and this is something that one accepts by virtue of choosing a rolling release distribution.
If you havenāt been updating regularly as required, due to restricted Internet, then this factor could arguably be a root cause of many problems.
Just a few points for consideration. Cheers.
When I installed a manjaro pc some months ago, I got the impression it did download everything during the installation. The installer was downloaded just a few hours before the installation.
This pc was updated on December 18, then the next was n February 12th I think, and on February 27th. The last one was when it screwed up. So, 7 weeks without updates (pc was not in use) went ok. The next 2 weeks did not go well.
It pays to check the Stable Update Announcements regularly to be aware of issues that might prevent a smooth update. This is likely something you do already, but I stress it now mainly for passers-by.
Reinstalling the OS is typically regarded as a Windows idiom by many here, but it certainly has itās place when all else fails. 
1 Like
Problem fixed by reinstalling.
What can be learned from this? The mapare script seems to reinstall all packages. But reinstallation of packages (with the parameters used by mapare) apparently does not replace existing files - OR - if it does replace existing files, it does not include all packages that should have been there.
I ran a Borg backup of / --exclude /home, which means I can mount the backup for comparison. Is there a way to compare dataset that loads of files in lots of directories, and filter with files changed between specified dates in one of the datasets?
That looks like you had at some point the proprietary nvidia driver installed that needs this pkg as a dependency, is this correct?
Your inxi shows that youāre now using the free nouveau driver. On my 9500GT which uses nvidia-340xx-dkms the nouveau works but causes wake-from-suspend issues and occasional reboots at high graphics load.
Not sure that this addresses your issue but to get the proprietary driver working the following link has all info: How to get legacy nvidia 340.108 in kernel 5.15? - #5 by utherbone
That was exactly why I installed proprietary driver - well, tried. It failed. I got the utils installed, but not the driver. Hence no need for the utils and uninstalled. Turns out the videoadapter in that laptop has not been supported by proprietary driver since kernel 5.10.
Ongoing support for it even with Nouveau is questionable, at this point.
A workaround of course (to use the proprietary driver) would be to use kernel 5.10, however, itās likely no longer supported by Manjaro. Another non-rolling-release distribution might though; maybe Debian. 
If you donāt mind stepping out of your comfort zone, thereās always FreeBSD which typically supports anything you throw at it. or, based on FreeBSD but a little more user-friendly, thereās also GhostBSD.
Edit:- You might be lucky, afterall; at least, while the clock is ticking.
Is projected EOL december 2026 - until then it is in the repo as linux510.
Older Nvidia cards usually work well with Nouveau driver - but your mileage may vary.
As @6x12 said, it fails sometimes when resuming from sleep.
It has not failed in the past 20ish hours. Might work better in the reinstall of 2024, than the upgraded install since 2021.
Iād like to keep majaro because all other computers used in the household now runs manjaro.
I think it was @6x12 that said that.