Arch Linux

melog

Member

Registered: 2015-12-02

Posts: 8

Cannot start Plasma after upgrade

Hello there,

I've been using Arch and Plasma for over 18 months now. Now I have a serious problem (again), which I cannot solve on my own.

Plasma seems to start after entering startx, but I only see a mouse cursor (which I can move btw) and a black background. Then it freezes, and even after 10 minutes there is no progress.

I updated my system before shutting down (see logfile), and after the next boot the problem occurred.

I think there is a problem with the graphics driver and OpenGL.
I have a AMD Radeon 7850 and use the open source-driver with the mesa-test-git packages from Lone_Wolf (thanks btw) and kerberizer's repo for clang and llvm. Everything else (xorg, xf86-video-ati) is from extra.
This setup worked fine for the last couple of months. I recompiled mesa every week or so, but not before the hiccups began.
If I do glxinfo, it says:"unable to open display"

Here are several logs:

sudo journalctl -b
dmesg
pacman log
pacman -Q | mesa
Xorg.0.log
.xsession-errors
picture of screen after ctrl-alt-backspace and ctrl-c
/etc/X11/xorg.conf

Here is what I tried already without success:

• switched to mesa and llvm from extra

• switched to amdgpu (here I get a pink bar on the left, where my taskbar is, when starting Plasma, but the rest is the same)

• recompiled mesa-test-git

• reinstalled plasma and driver

• installed and started xfce, which also fails (which led me to the conclusion, that I don't have OpenGL)

• Live-boot to a different distro, so my video card is working obviously

• created a new user and started plasma

• cleared *.lock-files in .cache and .config

There seems to be a problem with ksmserver, but Google doesn't offer much (or more likely, I'm unable to identify the error).
I already switched from infinality to freetype!
I can start xterm, and a terminal opens with a mouse cursor.

Does anybody have a solution for me? Thank you very much!

mrunion

Member

From: Jonesborough, TN

Registered: 2007-01-26

Posts: 1,938

Website

Re: Cannot start Plasma after upgrade

Kernel 4.9.11 is the latest, yet your log shows 4.9.8. Are you doing partial upgrades? That's not supported if you are.

Also, your logs don't all appear to be from the same day. One log says 2/24, the pacman log says 2/08, and one other one I think was from 2/08.

Do a full upgrade (pacman -Syu) and see if the problem occurs. If so, get the latest logs and repost them.

Note: in your screenshot you can clearly see that it says "Server terminated successfully". That may mean you;ve just given X nothing to do.

---

Matt

"It is very difficult to educate the educated."

Volle

Member

From: Stuttgart, Germany

Registered: 2013-12-05

Posts: 48

Re: Cannot start Plasma after upgrade

i seem to have the exact same problem.
I did an update and after the next reboot I only have a black screen with a nice cursor.

I've got a nvidia gpu so since you've got an amd gpu it doesn't seem to be gpu related.

one thing I noticed is that, while updating everything with pacaur I can't compile lib32-qt4, maybe that's a problem on your system too?

haven't found a way to fix this yet and since my knowledge isn't that good I have no idea how to proceed.

one thing I did find is an entry in my journal which says:

ksplashqml[707]: Unrecognized OpenGL version

which logs could be useful to debug this?

[edit]

i installed nvidia-libgl which removed mesa-libgl and finally i can boot to plasma again.
I have no idea why it did work fine before the last update .

Last edited by Volle (2017-02-25 14:16:44)

melog

Member

Registered: 2015-12-02

Posts: 8

Re: Cannot start Plasma after upgrade

Kernel 4.9.11 is the latest, yet your log shows 4.9.8. Are you doing partial upgrades? That's not supported if you are.

Also, your logs don't all appear to be from the same day. One log says 2/24, the pacman log says 2/08, and one other one I think was from 2/08.

Do a full upgrade (pacman -Syu) and see if the problem occurs. If so, get the latest logs and repost them.

Note: in your screenshot you can clearly see that it says "Server terminated successfully". That may mean you;ve just given X nothing to do.

The pacman log I provided is the one after which my OpenGL (or whatever) stopped working...This was two weeks ago, then I was away. That's why I'm posting it just now.

I don't do partial upgrades, as I know, they aren't supported. I did a full upgrade just yesterday, but it still doesn't work. It's the same error.

And yeah, I kill the X-Server, because nothing happens. I just see a mouse cursor (which I can move) and a black background. Then I press ctrl-alt-backspace to kill X and press ctrl-c to get back to the cmd-line.

Thank you for your help!

i seem to have the exact same problem.
I did an update and after the next reboot I only have a black screen with a nice cursor.

I've got a nvidia gpu so since you've got an amd gpu it doesn't seem to be gpu related.

one thing I noticed is that, while updating everything with pacaur I can't compile lib32-qt4, maybe that's a problem on your system too?

haven't found a way to fix this yet and since my knowledge isn't that good I have no idea how to proceed.

one thing I did find is an entry in my journal which says:

ksplashqml[707]: Unrecognized OpenGL version

which logs could be useful to debug this?

[edit]

i installed nvidia-libgl which removed mesa-libgl and finally i can boot to plasma again.
I have no idea why it did work fine before the last update .

I try to compile lib32-qt4, but it seems quite large, so I have to wait a bit

Good to see you having success, I'm tinkering around a little bit more...

Volle

Member

From: Stuttgart, Germany

Registered: 2013-12-05

Posts: 48

Re: Cannot start Plasma after upgrade

I try to compile lib32-qt4, but it seems quite large, so I have to wait a bit

Good to see you having success, I'm tinkering around a little bit more...

I still can't compile lib32-qt4 so I think this might be a useless time sink for you