Troubles booting

davideddu · 2014-11-10 21:36:40

Hello,
I recently installed Arch Linux. It worked for a couple weeks, but now I run a system upgrade and it stopped booting.
It always hangs at "Bluetooth target reached" (but I don't think that's the problem), and while booting it says that it wasn't able to swapon /dev/sda6 (I don't even want it to! it says something orange about dependencies right below it) and it says it failed loading something like "temporary file setup".

The reason why I'm vague is that I'm not able to access the logs. I chroot through another linux distro to arch, then run journalctl -b -1 and I see only old logs. journalctl --list-boots only shows (successful) boots up to a week ago, and the very latest log is empty.
I tried adding the "debug" kernel command line argument but it didn't help. When it hangs I'm not even able to switch to a console or hit some key to skip/debug the problematic job like I was used to on upstart on Ubuntu. Why does systemd have to be so damn complicated??

Can you please help me to get the logs and possibly solve this issue.

Thank you!

surfatwork · 2014-11-10 22:24:36

boot into fall back console mode. See if that completes.
disable any login managers. See if X starts.

Last edited by surfatwork (2014-11-10 22:25:52)

karol · 2014-11-10 22:30:58

Does switching to another terminal with Alt-Ctl-F2 etc. work?

davideddu · 2014-11-11 13:48:12

surfatwork wrote:

boot into fall back console mode. See if that completes.
disable any login managers. See if X starts.

I forgot to mention that I tried booting with the fallback initramfs but it didn't work.
Ctrl+alt+ anything doesn't work except for ctrl+alt+del, which reboots the computer.

I'm going to chroot into it and try to disable gdm and see if I can get to a console.
By the way I took a picture of the boot messages with the fallback initramfs:

Thanks for the quick answer.

davideddu · 2014-11-11 13:57:17

Nope, i turning gdm off didn't help. It's still stuck at reached target Bluetooth.
I'll try to remove the swap partition and see of it works, even though I think the problem is somewhere else. Can it be something due to low disk space? I've seen Ubuntu doing really weird things with low disk space. I'll try cleaning up some junk.

ewaller · 2014-11-11 16:23:55

You are using quite a few things that I won't use, so I may not be of much help.
First, I note that you seem to be using btrfs. There are active threads dealing with disastrous results after a recent upgrade with that FS. You might look into some of the issues with that highly experimental file system. I also see that home seems to be encrypted. Again, something I don't do, so I have to ask, is the passphrase entry and the subsequent access to the data working the way you expect?

Also, your /etc/fstab. How are you identifying the volumes? Are you using UUID (good)? or device node names (less than ideal)? Is your swap really at /dev/sda6? Are you sure? If you've more than one drive, it might not be where you think it is.

I apologize for not having any good answers, but maybe I hope my suggestions can help you think outside the box you are in.

davideddu · 2014-11-11 20:42:35

ewaller wrote:

You are using quite a few things that I won't use, so I may not be of much help.
First, I note that you seem to be using btrfs. There are active threads dealing with disastrous results after a recent upgrade with that FS. You might look into some of the issues with that highly experimental file system. I also see that home seems to be encrypted. Again, something I don't do, so I have to ask, is the passphrase entry and the subsequent access to the data working the way you expect?
Also, your /etc/fstab. How are you identifying the volumes? Are you using UUID (good)? or device node names (less than ideal)? Is your swap really at /dev/sda6? Are you sure? If you've more than one drive, it might not be where you think it is.
I apologize for not having any good answers, but maybe I hope my suggestions can help you think outside the box you are in.

I am using btrfs. I've been using it for at least one year on Ubuntu and it worked as expected most of the times (I did have some issues). However I like it and I need its snapshotting feature and other features that ext doesn't provide; I'd rather give up arch Linux but not btrfs.
My home directory is encrypted, and it's successfully decrypted on boot. That's why you see the password prompt only once. You'd see it more than once if it didn't work. And by the way the luks encrypted partition also contains a btrfs filesystem.

My fstab uses uuids and mounts the following: root, home (on the same file system as root but on a different subvolume), /boot/efi, /boot/HP (laptop specific stuff, I have a custom bootloader there that is loaded when I press a button when the PC is off), two different subvolumes from the encrypted filesystem and another btrfs file system with the CyanogenMod sources. I don't swapon in my fstab and I don't want it too!. I don't understand why it stubbornly has to swap on freaking /dev/sda6! Yes there is a 5GB swap there but arch is not supposed to use it! Just because it's there it doesn't mean it can do whatever it wants with it! I have only one drive (it's a laptop) and I don't usually have USB drives connected on boot.

MK13 · 2014-11-12 11:08:15

davideddu wrote:

Hello,
The reason why I'm vague is that I'm not able to access the logs. I chroot through another linux distro to arch, then run journalctl -b -1 and I see only old logs. journalctl --list-boots only shows (successful) boots up to a week ago, and the very latest log is empty.

I have the same issue with journalctl.

You could try

sudo journalctl --since=YYYY-MM-dd

davideddu · 2014-11-13 14:21:49

Thank you, I will try.

davideddu · 2014-11-19 18:25:20

MK13 wrote:

davideddu wrote:
Hello,
The reason why I'm vague is that I'm not able to access the logs. I chroot through another linux distro to arch, then run journalctl -b -1 and I see only old logs. journalctl --list-boots only shows (successful) boots up to a week ago, and the very latest log is empty.
I have the same issue with journalctl.
You could try
sudo journalctl --since=YYYY-MM-dd

Sorry for the late answer but nope, that didn't help.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-11-10 21:36:40

Troubles booting

#2 2014-11-10 22:24:36

Re: Troubles booting

#3 2014-11-10 22:30:58

Re: Troubles booting

#4 2014-11-11 13:48:12

Re: Troubles booting

#5 2014-11-11 13:57:17

Re: Troubles booting

#6 2014-11-11 16:23:55

Re: Troubles booting

#7 2014-11-11 20:42:35

Re: Troubles booting

#8 2014-11-12 11:08:15

Re: Troubles booting

#9 2014-11-13 14:21:49

Re: Troubles booting

#10 2014-11-19 18:25:20

Re: Troubles booting

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