Arch Linux

aethelstan

Member

Registered: 2017-06-03

Posts: 5

[SOLVED] Blank screen after boot manager

Hi fellow arch users, been a frequent reader here but only now have a serious issue that I don't know how to handle:
Since yesterday, whenever I bootup, immediately after the boot menu (I have a dual boot setup with Windows 10), I get a completely blank, black screen. I have tried adding several kernel parameters I found mentioned in other blank screen issues (" nomodeset", " nvidia.modeset=0", " video=fb" and " nosplash debug"), but to no avail, the issue stayed exactly the same.

I suspect either an update gone wrong or something wrong with the nvidia drivers (one of the last times I started arch I played around with the CUDA sdk).

The strange thing though is that the exact same thing also happens with a USB boot stick with the current iso image (2017.06.01, downloaded today).

I apologize if this is some easy issue or well-known issue, but I have searched quite a while and couldn't find any working solution, and also am at my wits end in how to address this. Any pointers in what i could check?

A xubuntu boot usb stick does work on the system, so I can access the file system.

I think in my arch installation the kernel somehow doesn't get properly started, as it does not show any text at all, and can still be turned off simply by pressing (not holding, just quickly pushing) the power button. So maybe it's an issue with the boot loader? I think I used the systemd-boot manager. How can I reinstall that?

The system in question has a Core i7 3770K and a GeForce 960 graphics gard.

If I can provide any more info please let me know; thanks in advance for any help!

Last edited by aethelstan (2017-06-03 21:35:51)

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after boot manager

What exact parameters have you tried passing to the kernel?

Not an Installation issue, moving to NC...

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Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

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aethelstan

Member

Registered: 2017-06-03

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after boot manager

" nomodeset", " nvidia.modeset=0", " video=fb" and " nosplash debug"
Could you recommend any others I can try?
Any log I might check for errors?

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after boot manager

It is documented in the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … odesetting

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Arch + dwm   •   Mercurial repos  •   Surfraw

Registered Linux User #482438

aethelstan

Member

Registered: 2017-06-03

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after boot manager

Thanks for the link.
I now tried:
" nomodeset noveau.modeset=0", " nomodeset i915.modeset=0 noveau.modeset=0" (and tried to add also nvidia.modeset=0 and nv.modeset=0 to these), but all show still exactly the same problem.

Can you recommend any other settings?

Is this nomodeset the only issue that can cause such a blank screen, or what else could I try?

What could have caused this issue to appear now, on an installation that has previously been running for about a year without showing this issue, and also cause it to show up when booting from the iso?

Last edited by aethelstan (2017-06-03 19:52:53)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,371

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after boot manager

Remove the quiet parameter if present add loglevel=7 if that fails add the parameter earlyprintk as well with the value vga if the system is bios booting and the value efi if the system is efi booting see also kernel-parameters

aethelstan

Member

Registered: 2017-06-03

Posts: 5

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after boot manager

Thanks!
I tried with

loglevel=7 efi=debug earlyprintk=efi

I got loads of output, which ended with a kernel panic in acpi_parse_ioapic (see this screenshot: https://cloud.bfroehler.info/s/XbSQzEI70ce63Rz).
As I saw acpi/apic mentioned in the trace, I thought I'd give noapic/noacpi options a try, but they didn't help.

A bit of googling brought up this though: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=226520 .  Tried booting from 2017.05.01 live cd, this worked. Then, as mentioned in that other thread, I arch-chroot'ed into my root partition and got linux-lts installed, now I can boot up again.

Thanks a lot for your help!

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 17,371

Re: [SOLVED] Blank screen after boot manager

Please supply upstream with the requested information such as https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195633#c8 if you can so that the issue can be fixed in the kernel.