Arch Linux

bosco

Member

Registered: 2019-02-26

Posts: 16

Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

Using a Lenovo Thinkpad t480, GRUB as bootloader, default BIOS.

Ever since I last shut down my system, I'm not able to boot into it. GRUB shows its usual options but when I hit boot, after the 'loading initrams' screen I see the Lenovo logo and it gets stuck there.
The most obvious solution seemed to boot from the installation USB and fix on chroot. So I did, I only have one partition (I use a swapfile) so I just ran

mount /dev/nvme0...(my drive) /mnt
arch-chroot /mnt

That worked, doing ls and cd all over the place showed that it was in fact my system, I even copied my home directory to a different SSD in case i need to reinstall (hopefully I won't), as well as my etc folder and the output of pacman -Q
So I went ahead and tried to reinstall the kernel

pacman -S linux

That didn't work, pacman was showing multiple instances of

ldconfig: File /some/path is empty, not checked.

I tried the same with random packages, both installing and removing, and I get similar messages.
I then tried a different approach, rebooting and doing from the live environment but the drive mounted

pacman --root /mnt -S linux

Still, similar messages.
I then downloaded the newest ISO and flashed it to try again from an updated environment, tried everything above and still nothing.
Is there something I'm missing? Is formatting and reinstalling my only option left?

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,300

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

Don't paraphrase, which actual command are you using for mounting  and which actual output do you get: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/List_o … n_services

File empty errors usually point to file system corruption, if you did a "normal" shutdown not in the middle of an update I'd check my disk health https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/S.M.A.R.T.

bosco

Member

Registered: 2019-02-26

Posts: 16

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

Ok, I don't have my laptop on me right now but will post the full commands and outputs when I get a chance to

bosco

Member

Registered: 2019-02-26

Posts: 16

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

Seeing drives

# lsblk
NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
loop0         7:0    0 673.1M  1 loop /run/archiso/airootfs
sda           8:0    1   7.2G  0 disk 
├─sda1        8:1    1   760M  0 part /run/archiso/bootmnt
└─sda2        8:2    1    86M  0 part 
sdb           8:16   1     0B  0 disk 
nvme0n1     259:0    0 119.2G  0 disk 
├─nvme0n1p1 259:2    0   119G  0 part 
└─nvme0n1p2 259:3    0   260M  0 part 
nvme1n1     259:1    0 476.9G  0 disk 
└─nvme1n1p5 259:4    0 476.9G  0 part 

Mounting disk

mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt

There's no output, but if I ls /mnt I see everything that's supposed to be there
Now running arch-chroot

arch-chroot /mnt

It goes to a root console, all my previously installed programmes work
Reinstalling linux

# pacman -S linux
warning: linux-5.14.14.arch1-1 is up to date -- reinstalling
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) linux-5.14.14.arch1-1

Total Installed Size:  131.26 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:        0.00 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] checking keyring...
checking package integrity...
loading package files...
checking for file conflicts...
checking available disk space...
:: Processing package changes...
reinstalling linux...
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngineCore.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5PdfWidgets.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libruby.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libruby.so.3.0.2 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5PdfWidgets.so.5.15.6 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libisoburn.so.1.111.0 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libisoburn.so.1 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libisofs.so.6 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngine.so.5 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5Pdf.so.5.15.6 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libisoburn.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngineCore.so.5.15.6 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5PdfWidgets.so.5 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libruby.so.3.0 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libisofs.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libpython2.7.so.1.0 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngine.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libburn.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngineWidgets.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5Pdf.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngineCore.so.5.15 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5Pdf.so.5.15 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libburn.so.4.107.0 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5PdfWidgets.so.5.15 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngine.so.5.15 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libpython2.7.so is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5Pdf.so.5 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngineCore.so.5 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libisofs.so.6.91.0 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngineWidgets.so.5.15 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libburn.so.4 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngineWidgets.so.5.15.6 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngineWidgets.so.5 is empty, not checked.
ldconfig: File /usr/lib/libQt5WebEngine.so.5.15.6 is empty, not checked.
:: Running post-transaction hooks...
(1/3) Arming ConditionNeedsUpdate...
(2/3) Updating module dependencies...
(3/3) Updating linux initcpios...

There's the problem.

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,300

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

That's a pretty isolated set, run pacman -Qo on those and reinstall their owner packages. e.g. qt5-webengine, python2, ruby, libburn none of these should have kernel level relevance however.

Something of potential relevance you didn't mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 anywhere, if you don't have your vmlinuz-linux and initramfs-linux.img there that can be normal and expected, but if you mounted your ESP to /boot you will want to mount that as well appropriately before reinstalling the kernel.

Last edited by V1del (2021-10-29 18:30:08)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,996

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

(3/3) Updating linux initcpios...

Was there no output after the line above or did you omit it?
Missing output would indicate the initrd was not regenerated,  possibly due to /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset being replaced by an empty file.

bosco

Member

Registered: 2019-02-26

Posts: 16

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

That's a pretty isolated set, run pacman -Qo on those and reinstall their owner packages. e.g. qt5-webengine, python2, ruby, libburn none of these should have kernel level relevance however.

Something of potential relevance you didn't mount /dev/nvme0n1p2 anywhere, if you don't have your vmlinuz-linux and initramfs-linux.img there that can be normal and expected, but if you mounted your ESP to /boot you will want to mount that as well appropriately before reinstalling the kernel.

I thought arch-chroot took care of the ESP, do I just run mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /boot or do I mount it somewhere else?
Regarding reinstalling owner packages, I can't install anything at all with pacman, I get a similar output for every package.

(3/3) Updating linux initcpios...

Was there no output after the line above or did you omit it?
Missing output would indicate the initrd was not regenerated,  possibly due to /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset being replaced by an empty file.

I didn't omit any lines, all the output is as is. I don't know much about mkinitcpio, will look into it

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,300

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

You'd run that from the chroot yes, but that does assume your kernel images were stored on the ESP in the first place which is something you need to check/know.

FWIW the last time someone had such an empty initcpio updating line it turned out they weren't using Arch Linux is that the case here?

bosco

Member

Registered: 2019-02-26

Posts: 16

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

Nope, not using Artix, goruda or anything of the sort, plain vanilla Arch downloaded from this very website

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,300

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

FWIW seeing as other files are empty it is indeed possible that your .preset files exist empty as well, in which case you should delete the empty file and then reinstall the linux package to generate the file anew.

Note that according to that output there's no inherent problem with installing the package, just that a certain set of files is empty that shouldn't be, if you reinstall the relevant offenders and thus bring contents into the empty files the "is empty" warnings should disappear. But the fact that you have those in the first place should be worrysome and you really should check disk health. Is this a Samsung SSD? They have some known wonkyness with power-saving defaults: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Solid_ … ST_support

Last edited by V1del (2021-11-01 14:36:27)

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,996

Re: Linux kernel won't boot, chroot won't fix it

If /etc/mkinitcpio.d/linux.preset is empty,  delete the file and reinstall the linux package.  It will be recreated by /usr/share/libalpm/hooks/90-mkinitcpio-install.hook.