[SOLVED] Black screen before login

gu1d00 · 2025-03-19 23:00:12

Hi everyone,
I broke something and need some help.

Long story short:
Trying to make hardware acceleration working on my machine (an old MacBook Pro with Intel CPU and Iris 5100 integrated GPU and Wayland) I installed
libva-intel-driver.
Then I tried:

vainfo

And it return an error referring to mesa (sorry for the lack of details here but I can't recover more info), so I tried to install it (stupid mistake) with:

sudo pacman -S mesa

Previously I also edited the environmental variable (/etc/environment):

LIBVA_DRIVER_NAME=i965

Then I rebooted and, after the boot loader (refind if it matters) the system load correctly (I can't see any error, but it's too fast to really read something to be honest) but I can't login because I'm stuck with a black screen before the login page (I can only see the mouse arrow).
I tried Ctrl+alt+F to have at least a console but nothing happen and I'm stuck.

Can someone help me to fix this mess?

Last edited by gu1d00 (2025-03-20 21:05:19)

twelveeighty · 2025-03-19 23:39:48

If you can, change the kernel parameters on the fly (you don't mention what bootloader you're running), and add `systemd.unit=multi-user.target` to get to a non-graphical console. From there, you should be able to troubleshoot and/or undo what you did to get back to a working system. If you cannot change the kernel parameters on the fly, boot into the Arch ISO, mount your actual /boot and change it that way.

gu1d00 · 2025-03-20 09:44:11

Thanks for your reply.

As stated here, I use rEFInd as bootloader:

gu1d00 wrote:

Then I rebooted and, after the boot loader (refind if it matters)...

Probably it wasn't clear, sorry for that.

About changing kernel parameters on the fly, I guess you are referring to point 2:

When starting the kernel—using command line parameters (usually through a boot loader, or as well in unified kernel image).

My guess is that I messed up something when I installed/updated the mesa package because after previews attempts, where I tried both libva-intel-driver and intel-media-driver separately, I had no problem rebooting the machine.

If the problem is related with mesa package as I suggested, what could be the solution?

I don't have access to the machine now, so I will try as you suggested this evening and let you know.

seth · 2025-03-20 13:52:45

libva will not be critical for your DM, it's for video playback.

so I tried to install it (stupid mistake) with:
sudo pacman -S mesa

mesa or mesa-amber would have been intalled beforehand, chances are you either replaced mesa-amber w/ mesa or conducted a partial update (ie. more like "pacman -Sy mesa"…)
In the latter case "pacman -Syu" will likely do.

gu1d00 · 2025-03-20 16:01:17

Thanks for the clarification.

As I told before, the stupid mistake was to install mesa.
I did it because I was convinced that it was already installed and it would have been updated. Clearly I was wrong.

As soon as I get home I will try to update everything (pacman -Syu) and/or remove mesa (or replace it with mesa-amber).

gu1d00 · 2025-03-20 21:17:28

Ok, I solved the problem. Thanks for your help.

Through the bootloader I was able to edit kernel parameters as suggested by twelveeighty.
Then a simple "pacman -Syu", as suggested by seth, solved the problem.

Now I have to find a way to enable hardware acceleration. I will probably ask some help in another post, cause it's not clear to me what's the right driver for my Intel Iris Graphics 5100 (libva-intel-driver or intel-media-driver). I tried both but I wasn't able make them work.

Thanks again, SOLVED!

seth · 2025-03-20 21:21:25

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardwa … tion#Intel
You've a Haswell chip which is pre-broadwell so https://archlinux.org/packages/?name=libva-intel-driver - don't bother w/ intel-media-driver.

gu1d00 · 2025-03-20 21:50:55

Thanks seth, that was also my guess.
My problem was (I probably solved also this one) that, after installing libva-intel-driver, the command vainfo returned me this error:

error: failed to resolve wl_drm_interface(): /usr/lib/libEGL_mesa.so.0: undefined symbol: wl_drm_interface

Googling a bit, I found this post on Reddit (hope this doesn't break any rule).
Downgrading libva package (2.22.0-1 => 2.21.0-1) apparently solved the problem and now vainfo return me this:

Trying display: wayland
vainfo: VA-API version: 1.21 (libva 2.22.0)
vainfo: Driver version: Intel i965 driver for Intel(R) Haswell - 2.4.1
vainfo: Supported profile and entrypoints
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Simple            : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileMPEG2Main              : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264ConstrainedBaseline: VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264Main               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264High               : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264MultiviewHigh      : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileH264StereoHigh         : VAEntrypointEncSlice
      VAProfileVC1Simple              : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Main                : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileVC1Advanced            : VAEntrypointVLD
      VAProfileNone                   : VAEntrypointVideoProc
      VAProfileJPEGBaseline           : VAEntrypointVLD

I don't get why it says:

vainfo: VA-API version: 1.21 (libva 2.22.0)

Because I downgraded the package and if I run "sudo pacman -Q --info libva" it confirms the downgrade:

Nome                      : libva
Versione                  : 2.21.0-1
Descrizione               : Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux
Architettura              : x86_64
URL                       : https://01.org/linuxmedia/vaapi
Licenze                   : MIT
Gruppi                    : Nessuno
Fornisce                  : libva-drm.so=2-64  libva-glx.so=2-64  libva-wayland.so=2-64  libva-x11.so=2-64  libva.so=2-64
Dipenda da                : libdrm  libgl  libx11  libxext  libxfixes  wayland
Dipendenze opzionali      : intel-media-driver: backend for Intel GPUs (>= Broadwell)
                            libva-intel-driver: backend for Intel GPUs (<= Haswell) [installato]
                            libva-mesa-driver: backend for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs [installato]
Richiesto da              : chromium  ffmpeg  ffmpeg4.4  gst-plugins-bad-libs  kpipewire  libva-intel-driver  libva-utils
                            mpv  vlc
Opzionale per             : Nessuno
Conflitti con             : Nessuno
Sostituisce               : Nessuno
Spazio richiesto          : 918,96 KiB
Pacchettizzatore          : Maxime Gauduin <alucryd@archlinux.org>
Data di creazione         : mar 12 mar 2024, 19:35:49
Data di installazione     : gio 20 mar 2025, 22:37:10
Motivo dell'installazione : Installato come dipendenza di un altro pacchetto
Script di install         : No
Convalidato da            : Firma

seth · 2025-03-20 22:58:47

You're allowed to find stuff wherever you find it.
https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/ … ote_233516

vainfo is part of libva-utils, you probably didn't but rather should downgrade that as well.

gu1d00 · 2025-03-23 10:26:23

Of course I am allowed to find stuff wherever I want seth, my worry was about posting it here.

Referring to your link I read this:

Martin Rys wrote:

@alucryd the upstream PR was merged late October, and Intel stopped maintaining the project on the same date without a release, so this is now on Arch to pull.

The page linked by Martin Rys states the discontinuation of intel-vaapi-driver and suggest to move to Intel(R) Media Driver for VAAPI.
What I don't get is: now am I supposed to switch to intel-media-driver even though this is for Broadwell chips? What will happen to Haswell chips (I know is old stuff...)?

About libva-utils, I didn't downgrade it at the moment and I didn't have any issue, but I can try if it's necessary.

And last question: do I have to move all of this to another section?

Thanks again.

V1del · 2025-03-23 11:12:36

intel-vaapi-driver will hopefully continue to work as is. Other than that you'll eventually have to concede that people might not support a given piece of HW/SW combination forever. In this particular case, since all of this is open source, given someone has enough interest a fork is possible that keeps it going, technically this happened with the mentioned patch - you could apply yourself as a test - or that alucryd/a packager taking it over pulls in.

Seeing as this is likely effectively untestable by Arch maintainers, there are also chances it will get dropped the AUR, where again an interested enough user could take over maintenance.

gu1d00 · 2025-03-24 22:21:51

Thanks V1del for the clarification.

Sorry to bother, but I have some other questions.

Trying to understand how to apply the patch and in particular where to locate libva-driver-intel on my machine I run 'sudo pacman -Q --info libva-driver-intel' and it returned:

errore: impossibile trovare il pacchetto 'libva-driver-intel'

Sorry for the Italian, basically it says that is impossible to locate the package 'libva-driver-intel'.
So I tried again 'sudo pacman -Q --info libva':

Nome                      : libva
Versione                  : 2.21.0-1
Descrizione               : Video Acceleration (VA) API for Linux
Architettura              : x86_64
URL                       : https://01.org/linuxmedia/vaapi
Licenze                   : MIT
Gruppi                    : Nessuno
Fornisce                  : libva-drm.so=2-64  libva-glx.so=2-64  libva-wayland.so=2-64  libva-x11.so=2-64  libva.so=2-64
Dipenda da                : libdrm  libgl  libx11  libxext  libxfixes  wayland
Dipendenze opzionali      : intel-media-driver: backend for Intel GPUs (>= Broadwell)
                            libva-intel-driver: backend for Intel GPUs (<= Haswell) [installato]
                            libva-mesa-driver: backend for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs [installato]
Richiesto da              : chromium  ffmpeg  ffmpeg4.4  gst-plugins-bad-libs  kpipewire  libva-intel-driver  libva-utils
                            mpv  vlc
Opzionale per             : Nessuno
Conflitti con             : Nessuno
Sostituisce               : Nessuno
Spazio richiesto          : 918,96 KiB
Pacchettizzatore          : Maxime Gauduin <alucryd@archlinux.org>
Data di creazione         : mar 12 mar 2024, 19:35:49
Data di installazione     : gio 20 mar 2025, 22:37:10
Motivo dell'installazione : Installato come dipendenza di un altro pacchetto
Script di install         : No
Convalidato da            : Firma

As you can see, 'libva-intel-driver' is present under 'Dipendenze opzionali' (Optional Dependencies in Italian) and is installed ('[installato]'). So I don't get why the first command did not returned information about it.

Beside that, again under 'Dipendenze Opzionali', is reported 'libva-mesa-driver' is installed, and in particular libva-mesa-driver: backend for AMD and NVIDIA GPUs.
I remember I installed 'mesa', it was the begging of all this mess, and 'libva-mesa-driver' was installed with it. I can simply remove 'mesa', considering that I don't have neither AMD and NVIDIA GPUs, right?

Thanks again for your time and patience.

Last edited by gu1d00 (2025-03-24 22:22:33)

seth · 2025-03-25 07:39:26

seth wrote:

You've a Haswell chip which is pre-broadwell so libva-intel-driver

Arch Linux

#1 2025-03-19 23:00:12

[SOLVED] Black screen before login

#2 2025-03-19 23:39:48

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#3 2025-03-20 09:44:11

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#4 2025-03-20 13:52:45

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#5 2025-03-20 16:01:17

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#6 2025-03-20 21:17:28

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#7 2025-03-20 21:21:25

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#8 2025-03-20 21:50:55

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#9 2025-03-20 22:58:47

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#10 2025-03-23 10:26:23

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#11 2025-03-23 11:12:36

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#12 2025-03-24 22:21:51

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

#13 2025-03-25 07:39:26

Re: [SOLVED] Black screen before login

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