Arch Linux

Cypress2

Member

Registered: 2021-09-29

Posts: 1

Black screen with dim blinking cursor after boot

Dear Arch community,

I'm facing the problem stated in the subject. I have a journal from the failed boot but I'm not posting it right away because it has 1.5k lines. Please let me know if I should post it.

It seems to have something to do with Xorg. Also, this is a dated Arch installation that I never got to work due to this error (although, occasionally, I'd reach LightDM (and then I could log in), but not consistently). For curiosity and learning effect reasons, I'd prefer solving this problem to re-installing.

Could it have something to do with Xorg not being ready when LightDM tries to use it?

Thanks!

Last edited by Cypress2 (2023-02-19 01:34:18)

ProffDea

Member

Registered: 2022-07-28

Posts: 1

Re: Black screen with dim blinking cursor after boot

Go ahead and check the Xorg log file in `/var/log/Xorg.0.log` to confirm if it's an Xorg problem. Look for any `WW` and `EE`s for warnings and errors to see if it correlates to the issue you're having.

The GPU drivers are also a possibility of being the culprit. Check `lspci -nnk`  to find your GPU and the kernel driver it's using. Updating or reinstalling the driver with pacman has a chance to help.

From the sound of the problem being inconsistent (occasionally you reach LightDM), maybe you can give `Ctrl + Alt + F3` a try to log in using the tty then `sudo systemctl restart lightdm.service` to determine your suspicion on if Xorg is just not being ready for LightDM to use on boot. It could also be a good idea to see if other display managers experience the same exact issue like trying sddm.

Last edited by ProffDea (2023-02-19 03:33:16)

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Hello, Dea was here and I'm new here

loqs

Member

Registered: 2014-03-06

Posts: 18,962

Re: Black screen with dim blinking cursor after boot

Please post the output of

grep -v ^# /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

Also the contents of /var/log/Xorg.0.log /var/log/lightdm.log and the full system journal for a boot with the issue.  See pastebin to post from the console.