[SOLVED] Hang on reboot after recent update

Hi,

I updated my NetRunner rolling system yesterday and now when it boots to the SDDM login screen it’s responsive for a few seconds and then hangs - only a hard reset will recover it. I’ve replaced SDDM with KDM and this made no difference. I can boot the system into rescue mode and then “systemctl default” and that will work, but I cannot boot directly into a working system. See; https://forum.manjaro.org/index.php?topic=17461.msg163562#msg163562

I’m running netrunner 3.14.21-1-MANJARO with a nVidia GeForce 6600 GT (i.e. legacy driver). mhwd-gpu --status and --check all look good.

Once I’ve booted into rescue mode and then into default I can see a single failed service:

systemctl – failed
plymouth-quit-wait.service loaded failed failed

I think the plymouth service failing is because of you booting into failsafe which does not start plymouth.
Can you take a look at the system log with journalctl -a
after the crash appeared. Maybe it could post the problem there.
Otherwise freezes are hard to debug.

If you think it is a plymouth problem nevertheless you can also try to start the standard boot entry without plymouth by removing the splash from the default entry. (Use e to edit the boot entry interactively in bootmanager)

I removed the “splash” and “quiet” from the boot entry and booted - unfortunately it did not help. It froze several seconds after the login manager appeared. There is nothing unusual in the journal. I can boot this system from another disk for a different distro and that continues to work OK so I’m happy the hardware is OK.

Maybe it has to do with hardware acceleration for your graphicscard and the desktop effects.
Can you check if it also hangs when you don’t login.
Are you login in the default plasma desktop or maybe the failsafe desktop?

There are only three nvidia drivers supported under Netrunner Rolling (Manjaro), nvidia (343.xx), nvidia-304xx, and nvidia-340xx., so when you say legacy driver I hope you mean 304xx as the others don’t support your card.

nvidia (343.xx) --GeForce 400 series cards and newer [NVCx and newer]
nvidia-340xx — GeForce 8000/9000 and 100-300 series cards [NV5x, NV8x, NV9x and NVAx]
nvidia-304xx – GeForce 6000/7000 series cards [NV4x and NV6x]
nouveau – All chipsets

Try adding this to your /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf file.

 options nvidia NVreg_Mobile=1

Note:
NVreg_Mobile needs to be changed according to the laptop:
1 = Dell laptops.
2 = non-Compal Toshiba laptops.
3 = other laptops.
4 = Compal Toshiba laptops.
5 = Gateway laptops.

Could you also check to be sure that your /usr/lib/systemd/system/sddm.service file matches this:

[quote][Unit]
Description=Simple Desktop Display Manager
Documentation=man:sddm(1) man:sddm.conf(5)
Conflicts=getty@tty1.service
After=systemd-user-sessions.service getty@tty1.service plymouth-quit.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/usr/bin/sddm
Restart=always
#PrivateTmp=yes

[Install]
Alias=display-manager.service
[/quote]

It hangs both if I try to login and also if I don’t login i.e. just boot and leave it at the default KDM screen. I’ve tried both SDDM and KDM and its the same.
[hr]

[/quote]

Yes, I’m using the nvidia-304xx driver.

I’m not sure adding the “nvidia NVreg_Mobile” option is that useful as this is a desktop system, not a laptop.

The file sddm.service is the same as your example above.

I was able to boot into an old Manjaro distro on a different disk and then perform an update on that. It took a while, but the update went thro’ OK and I can boot into that system OK. My NetRunner system is on a SSD and Manjaro on a HDD, perhaps it’s a timing issue ?

Could possibly be a timing issue, but it could also just be a KDE issue as well. What was the Manjaro install that you updated (example: Manjaro 0.8.x XFCE edition)? Manjaro has changed the way in which the driver detection works a couple of times now, and it’s about to change again. Are you absolutely sure that both installs are also using the exact same non-free driver?

The Manjaro install was the KDE variant so I don’t think its related directly to KDE. Both are using v304.123 of the nVidia driver. I’ve also got another NetRunner install on a different disk so I’m going to try an update on that and see what happens (this is currently running kernel 3.14.18-1, nVidia 304.123, with 331 updates pending)

Ah yes, then you didn’t get the SDDM 0.9.0 update yet.

I can almost confidently say that your issue is probably related to the Plymouth / SDDM 0.1.0 issue, this is one of things that got fixed in SDDM 0.9.0, also keep in mind that the next update-pack will come with SDDM 0.10.0-3.

But how can SDDM be an issue I replaced it with KDM earlier ?

This is where I’m at:

NetRunner (on SSD). Freezes on boot. Replaced SDDM with KDM - no change. This is the distro I want to fix.
NetRunner (on HDD). This uses KDM and works fine after updating today.
Manjaro (on HDD). This uses KDM and works fine after updating today.

I’m tempted to remove all traces of SDDM (packages sddm & kcm-sddm-git) to see if that helps.

OK, the problem was not directly SDDM’s fault, this is a systemd, plymouth combination issue that effects all login managers. Plymouth is distributed with separate systemd service files than those provided with MDM, GDM, KDM, lightDM, lxdm and slim that call plymouth-quit.service after they load, SDDM is to new for the plymouth to have a replacement service file for it. The SDDM developers decided to take care of this situation themselves, so sddm now detects whether or not plymouth is enabled and adds the appropriate lines to it’s own service file itself. KDM would still have the same issue if you were to set kdm.service instead of kdm-plymouth.service, if you were to re-enable SDDM it should now work as expected.

I enabled SDDM using:

sudo systemctl enable sddm.service -f

and ensured kdm.service and kdm-plymouth.service was disabled and rebooted. Guess what ? It still hangs :frowning:

It does look to be timing/race issue. I booted the machine with logging enabled to the serial port and if the port was set to a slow speed (38400) the machine booted OK. If I set it to a higher speed (115200) then it hung as usual. I’ve got the logs but nothing obvious leaps out to me.

I don’t think its plymouth when its deactivated it does hang aswell as stated in the previous posts.
Maybe its the graphics driver. But I am not sure. Freezes are hard to debug.

OK then, you are having a timing/race issue then, this sounds like a serial port issue though. It might possibly have something to do with wayland or remote session support. I’ll have to check to see if SDDM is using the serial port for some reason when loging in.
This maybe a Arch / Manjaro issue and not upstream:
Try deleting or moving Xauthority from your home directory and restarting SDDM, if that doesn’t work could you post the output of: sudo journalctl -u sddm

I moved .Xauthority out of the way and it made no difference. The journal shows:

-- Reboot --
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm[382]: Session started
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm[382]: Greeter stopped.
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm[382]: Auth: sddm-helper exited successfully
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm-helper[546]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user steve by (uid=0)
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm[382]: Adding cookie to "/home/steve/.Xauthority"
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm[382]: Authenticated successfully
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm-helper[546]: [PAM] returning.
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm-helper[546]: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm-helper[546]: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm-helper[546]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm-helper[546]: [PAM] Starting...
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm[382]: Reading from "kde-plasma-safe.desktop"
Nov 07 22:18:30 netrunner sddm[382]: Message received from greeter: Login
Nov 07 22:18:20 netrunner sddm[382]: Message received from greeter: Connect
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm[382]: Greeter session started successfully
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm-helper[530]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm by (
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm-helper[530]: [PAM] returning.
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm-helper[530]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm-helper[530]: [PAM] Starting...
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm[382]: Greeter starting...
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm[382]: Socket server started.
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm[382]: Socket server starting...
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm[382]: Display server started.
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm[382]: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
Nov 07 22:18:19 netrunner sddm[382]: Signal received: SIGUSR1
Nov 07 22:18:16 netrunner sddm[382]: Running: /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/sddm/:0 -nolisten tcp -background 
Nov 07 22:18:16 netrunner sddm[382]: Display server starting...
Nov 07 22:18:16 netrunner sddm[382]: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/:0"
Nov 07 22:18:16 netrunner sddm[382]: Adding new display 0 on vt 7 ...
Nov 07 22:18:16 netrunner sddm[382]: Starting...
Nov 07 22:18:16 netrunner sddm[382]: Initializing...

According to the journal your starting up in KDE Plasma Workspace (Failsafe Session), you’ll need to change it to KDE Plasma Workspace in the left hand corner of SDDM before loging in.

Here is my output from today:

Nov 07 18:46:47 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Greeter starting... Nov 07 18:46:47 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10877]: [PAM] Starting... Nov 07 18:46:47 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10877]: [PAM] Authenticating... Nov 07 18:46:47 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10877]: [PAM] returning. Nov 07 18:46:47 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10877]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm by (uid=0) Nov 07 18:46:48 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Greeter session started successfully Nov 07 18:46:48 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Message received from greeter: Connect Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Message received from greeter: Login Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Reading from "kde-plasma.desktop" Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10890]: [PAM] Starting... Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10890]: [PAM] Authenticating... Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10890]: [PAM] Preparing to converse... Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10890]: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10890]: [PAM] returning. Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Authenticated successfully Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm-helper[10890]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user james by (uid=0) Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Session started Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Auth: sddm-helper exited successfully Nov 07 18:46:54 James-Laptop sddm[9482]: Greeter stopped.

I’m afraid that made no difference. Changed it to the default, tried a couple of reboots and each time it hung.

Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm[374]: Greeter stopped.
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm[374]: Auth: sddm-helper exited successfully
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm[374]: Session started
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm-helper[543]: pam_unix(sddm:session): session opened for user steve b
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm[374]: Adding cookie to "/home/steve/.Xauthority"
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm[374]: Authenticated successfully
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm-helper[543]: [PAM] returning.
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm-helper[543]: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm-helper[543]: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm-helper[543]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm-helper[543]: [PAM] Starting...
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm[374]: Reading from "kde-plasma.desktop"
Nov 08 11:09:12 netrunner sddm[374]: Message received from greeter: Login
Nov 08 11:09:05 netrunner sddm[374]: Message received from greeter: Connect
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm[374]: Greeter session started successfully
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm-helper[528]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm-helper[528]: [PAM] returning.
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm-helper[528]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm-helper[528]: [PAM] Starting...
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm[374]: Greeter starting...
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm[374]: Socket server started.
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm[374]: Socket server starting...
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm[374]: Display server started.
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm[374]: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
Nov 08 11:09:03 netrunner sddm[374]: Signal received: SIGUSR1
Nov 08 11:09:01 netrunner sddm[374]: Running: /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /var/run/sddm/:0 -nolisten tcp -b
Nov 08 11:09:01 netrunner sddm[374]: Display server starting...
Nov 08 11:09:01 netrunner sddm[374]: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/:0"
Nov 08 11:09:01 netrunner sddm[374]: Adding new display 0 on vt 7 ...
Nov 08 11:09:01 netrunner sddm[374]: Starting...
Nov 08 11:09:01 netrunner sddm[374]: Initializing...

Your SDDM session should be opening on TTY1 (vt1/F1), but yours seems to be opening a second display on TTY7 (vt7/F7), something is definitely setup wrong somewhere in your configs? For now if KDM works for you then I would use it.

This is just an FYI. but please keep in mind that the KDE Community will be removing KDM from their source code base os eventually, even in KDE SC 4 (Plasma 4) KDM will no longer be available.

The problem is neither SDDM or KDM work for me - both freeze after a few seconds. The only way I can login to the system is to boot into rescue mode, wait a few seconds and then do “systemctl default”. This then brings up SDDM and I can login.

I originally installed from DVD the 2014.04 version of NetRunner. I can re-install if necessary the latest spin, but obviously one of the advantages of a rolling release is that this is not usually necessary.

Yes, but keep in mind that the Netrunner Rolling 2014.04 ISO was the Netrunner teams first build, it did have a few missing libraries as well as a some configuration issues that have since been corrected in the newer ISO’s.

We need to remember that Netrunner Rolling is based on Manjaro, which itself is still considered to be in a beta state, Manjaro is still working on their own hardware detection system as well as other utilities unique to Manjaro.

Also consider that the Netrunner team are still a bit new at working with a rolling release system like Manjaro. The 2014.09.1 ISO has been the most stable so far, and the issues we’ve seen from systems installed using this ISO have been mostly from upstream with just a few minor exception. Personally, I believe that the Netrunner team have done an excellent job thus far with their edition of Manjaro. I also believe that their point release ISO’s, and the Netrunner specific packages in their blueshell repository, can only get better as time goes on.