Arch Linux

JustLetMeBoot

Member

Registered: 2025-09-02

Posts: 2

Boot options removed after updating

Got a bit of an odd one. I booted my PC after having not used it for awhile and ran "yay" to install updates. It seemed to run normally (didn't see any errors), but when I booted again later the main Arch Linux boot option was missing. All I had was "UEFI Firmware Settings" and "Arch Linux snapshots". I was able to boot from a recent snapshot, but wasn't able to recreate my boot menu from the snapshot. I WAS able to use an Arch USB to recreate the options, but once back on the system, I ran updates again and the option was removed. I once again did not see any errors when updating, but am stuck back where I started. Happy to provide logs, just not sure where to get the relevant ones for this issue! Some system info below (hopefully some of it is relevant)

Specs:
- CPU: Ryzen 5 2600x
- GPU: RX 6800xt
- RAM: 2x8GBs DDR4
- Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk

Other info:
- I followed this guide along with the official guide to set up my computer initially https://gist.github.com/mjkstra/96ce7a5 … 2cdc169bae
- Using Wayland (?) for my desktop

TIA!!

twelveeighty

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,448

Re: Boot options removed after updating

You did three things wrong: 1) you didn't check the News page for manual intervention issues after "having not used it for a while". 2) you run an AUR helper instead of pacman and 3) you use a 3rd party guide. Revert those three things, boot into a Live disk, perform manual steps required from the News page and run `pacman -Syu` with its inevitable cleanup/config edits.

JustLetMeBoot

Member

Registered: 2025-09-02

Posts: 2

Re: Boot options removed after updating

You did three things wrong: 1) you didn't check the News page for manual intervention issues after "having not used it for a while". 2) you run an AUR helper instead of pacman and 3) you use a 3rd party guide. Revert those three things, boot into a Live disk, perform manual steps required from the News page and run `pacman -Syu` with its inevitable cleanup/config edits.

Thanks for the reply!

1) Had no idea about the news page!  I assume you're referring to this article specifically? https://archlinux.org/news/zabbix-741-2 … ervention/.  That does roughly match my timeline of not using the computer (was away for 2 weeks). I am guessing it would be recommended to ALWAYS check the news page before running updates to avoid this type of thing in the future?

2) Should I stop using `yay` entirely going forward and only use `pacman`? I think I was only using `yay` as I saw it mentioned on a forum post or video.

3) I did try to cross-reference the two guides while going through, just found the third-party one to be a bit more newbie friendly.  Coming from Ubuntu, so it was a bit of a jump for me! I will go back through and revert what I can find.

twelveeighty

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,448

Re: Boot options removed after updating

1)... about the news page!

I would recommend quickly checking the following before running an update: the News page (and/or subscribe to the arch-announce news letter, which will push those notifications to your email), the "Pacman & Pacman Upgrade Issues" forum and the "Newbie Corner" forum. After doing that a couple of times, you'd get used to it and you can scan the subjects in a matter of seconds to see if there's a major fire burning somewhere you should be aware of *before* you run your update.

2) Should I [..] only use `pacman`?

This is a controversial topic and I'd say the correct answer is that you should make that choice yourself, as long as you are fully educated on the possible downsides of using an AUR helper. My advise is to only use pacman for official packages and makepkg + pacman for AUR packages. Only use packages from the official repos to maintain your system and always manually check AUR packages before running makepkg.

3) [..] found the third-party one to be a bit more newbie friendly

Think of it this way: once you get your system running the way *you* like it by only using the official Install Guide, the Arch Wiki articles and perhaps some tips from fellow Archers on the forums you no longer need "newbie friendly" and then you truly are running a User Centric distro where you are empowered by your own knowledge on what the heck is configured and happening on your own system.