blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

Samghouel · 2025-09-14 13:29:29

Hello, after updating my system with pacman -Syu, rebooting and logging in through sddm, I was met with a blackscreen with cursor on display and my fans started to spin rapidly. I decided to reinstall arch linux and the issue persisted. Adding nomodeset to kernel parameters solved this issue. I tried downgrading linux kernel and linux-firmware + using the lts kernel but nothing worked.

My system information:
Kernel 6.16.7-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Notebook Dell Vostro 15 3515
CPU AMD Ryzen 3 3250U
GPU AMD Picasso/Raven 2

Journalctl log:
http://0x0.st/KcK2.txt

seth · 2025-09-14 13:52:25

nomodeset will make you run on the simpledrm device, ie. software emulation.

According to the journal

Sep 14 14:39:57 dell sddm-helper[509]: pam_unix(sddm-greeter:session): session opened for user sddm(uid=968) by (uid=0)
Sep 14 14:39:58 dell sddm-helper[509]: Writing cookie to "/tmp/xauth_CeQIRP"
Sep 14 14:39:58 dell sddm-helper[509]: Starting X11 session: "" "/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/sddm-:0-phHYpn"

the sddm greeter starts fine,

Sep 14 14:40:04 dell sddm-helper[549]: pam_kwallet5(sddm:session): pam_kwallet5: pam_sm_open_session
Sep 14 14:40:04 dell sddm-helper[584]: pam_kwallet5: final socket path: /run/user/1000/kwallet5.socket
Sep 14 14:40:04 dell sddm-helper[549]: Writing cookie to "/tmp/xauth_ciLrMc"
Sep 14 14:40:04 dell sddm-helper[549]: Starting X11 session: "" "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsession \"/usr/bin/startplasma-x11\""

and 6s later you logged into a plasma-x11 session, but while plasmashell starts, kwin_x11 does not and

Sep 14 14:40:24 dell systemd[569]: Starting KScreen...
Sep 14 14:40:32 dell systemd[569]: plasma-kscreen.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
Sep 14 14:40:35 dell systemd[569]: plasma-kscreen.service: State 'stop-sigterm' timed out. Killing.
Sep 14 14:40:35 dell systemd[569]: plasma-kscreen.service: Killing process 936 (kscreen_backend) with signal SIGKILL.
Sep 14 14:40:37 dell systemd[569]: plasma-kscreen.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Sep 14 14:40:38 dell systemd[569]: Failed to start KScreen.
Sep 14 14:41:11 dell systemd[569]: Starting KScreen...
Sep 14 14:41:15 dell systemd[569]: plasma-kscreen.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
Sep 14 14:41:15 dell systemd[569]: plasma-kscreen.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Sep 14 14:41:15 dell systemd[569]: Failed to start KScreen.

fails.
=> https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/KDE#Un … lution_set ?

Samghouel · 2025-09-14 14:51:20

Following the "Unusable screen resolution set" part I found two files, yet they both have proper resolution set.
1st File:

[
    {
        "enabled": true,
        "id": "04b2e592196dd705f0eca79ad071c6c7",
        "metadata": {
            "fullname": "xrandr-LG Display",
            "name": "eDP"
        },
        "mode": {
            "refresh": 59.977149963378906,
            "size": {
                "height": 1080,
                "width": 1920
            }
        },
        "overscan": 0,
        "pos": {
            "x": 0,
            "y": 0
        },
        "priority": 1,
        "rgbrange": 0,
        "rotation": 1,
        "scale": 1,
        "vrrpolicy": 2
    }
]

2nd File:

[
    {
        "enabled": true,
        "id": "None-1",
        "metadata": {
            "name": "None-1"
        },
        "mode": {
            "refresh": 60,
            "size": {
                "height": 1080,
                "width": 1920
            }
        },
        "overscan": 0,
        "pos": {
            "x": 0,
            "y": 0
        },
        "priority": 1,
        "rgbrange": 0,
        "rotation": 1,
        "scale": 1,
        "vrrpolicy": 2
    }
]

Last edited by Samghouel (2025-09-14 18:23:27)

seth · 2025-09-14 18:16:28

Please use [code][/code] tags. Edit your post in this regard.
The usual mitigation would be to simply remove that file and see what happes, the "None-1" entry there might be from the nomodeset boot but not supposed to happen under normal circumstances.

Can you log into a KDE session w/ a fresh user account?

Samghouel · 2025-09-14 18:39:12

Okay so I removed the folder "kscreen". The same thing happened with the blackscreen, though I managed to change tty and after maybe 4 mins the fans calmed down. I switched back and my desktop was fine. The folder did not regenerate.

seth · 2025-09-14 18:42:39

Because kscreen likely never starts, do you get https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Core_d … _core_dump of it?

Samghouel · 2025-09-14 18:47:58

Using

 coredumpctl

returns "No coredumps found."

seth · 2025-09-14 18:49:56

seth wrote:

Can you log into a KDE session w/ a fresh user account?

Also post the journal for the boot in #5

Samghouel · 2025-09-14 18:55:20

journal log:
http://0x0.st/Kcc6.txt

seth · 2025-09-14 18:59:31

Sep 14 20:24:49 dell systemd[566]: plasma-kscreen.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
Sep 14 20:24:54 dell systemd[566]: plasma-kscreen.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Sep 14 20:24:54 dell systemd[566]: Failed to start KScreen.
Sep 14 20:24:54 dell systemd[566]: plasma-kscreen.service: Consumed 2.006s CPU time, 2M memory peak.
Sep 14 20:25:01 dell kded6[692]: org.kde.kscreen: Failed to request backend: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner" : "Could not activate remote peer 'org.kde.KScreen': startup job failed"
Sep 14 20:25:42 dell plasmashell[750]: org.kde.kscreen: Failed to request backend: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner" : "Could not activate remote peer 'org.kde.KScreen': startup job failed"
Sep 14 20:26:22 dell kwin_x11[696]: kf.config.core: "\"fsrestore1\" - conversion of \"0,0,0,0\" to QRect failed"
Sep 14 20:26:22 dell kwin_x11[696]: kf.config.core: "\"fsrestore2\" - conversion of \"0,0,0,0\" to QRect failed"
Sep 14 20:26:22 dell kwin_x11[696]: kf.config.core: "\"fsrestore3\" - conversion of \"0,0,0,0\" to QRect failed"
Sep 14 20:26:22 dell kwin_x11[696]: kf.config.core: "\"fsrestore4\" - conversion of \"0,0,0,0\" to QRect failed"
Sep 14 20:26:22 dell systemd[566]: Starting KScreen...
Sep 14 20:26:28 dell systemd[566]: plasma-kscreen.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
Sep 14 20:26:29 dell systemd[566]: plasma-kscreen.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Sep 14 20:26:31 dell systemd[566]: Failed to start KScreen.
Sep 14 20:27:04 dell plasmashell[750]: org.kde.kscreen: Failed to request backend: "org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NameHasNoOwner" : "Could not activate remote peer 'org.kde.KScreen': startup job failed"
Sep 14 20:30:05 dell systemd[566]: Starting KScreen...
Sep 14 20:30:05 dell systemd[566]: Started KScreen.
Sep 14 20:30:05 dell kscreen_backend_launcher[1552]: kscreen.xrandr: Connected output 81 to CRTC 78
Sep 14 20:30:05 dell kscreen_backend_launcher[1552]: kscreen.xcb.helper: Detected XRandR 1.6
Sep 14 20:30:05 dell kscreen_backend_launcher[1552]: kscreen.xcb.helper: Event Base:  89
Sep 14 20:30:05 dell kscreen_backend_launcher[1552]: kscreen.xcb.helper: Event Error:  147
Sep 14 20:46:00 dell kwin_x11[696]: kwin_core: XCB error: 3 (BadWindow), sequence: 40436, resource id: 54526012, major code: 129 (SHAPE), minor code: 6 (Input)

The null rect there looks suspicious

seth wrote:

seth wrote:
Can you log into a KDE session w/ a fresh user account?

Also, just for good measure (though SDDM seems fine, so not sure what could go wrong there) please post your Xorg log, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#General

Samghouel · 2025-09-14 19:06:37

Xorg log:
http://0x0.st/Kcc7.txt

seth · 2025-09-14 19:15:41

Iff you also run into this w/ a fresh user

[    19.107] (WW) AMDGPU(0): flip queue failed: Invalid argument
[    19.107] (WW) AMDGPU(0): Page flip failed: Invalid argument
[    21.560] (II) AMDGPU(0): EDID vendor "LGD", prod id 1522
[    21.560] (II) AMDGPU(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
[    21.560] (II) AMDGPU(0): Modeline "1920x1080"x0.0  138.60  1920 1968 2000 2080  1080 1083 1088 1111 +hsync -vsync (66.6 kHz eP)
[    21.560] (II) AMDGPU(0): Modeline "1920x1080"x0.0  110.88  1920 1968 2000 2080  1080 1083 1088 1111 +hsync -vsync (53.3 kHz e)
[   109.396] (WW) AMDGPU(0): flip queue failed: Invalid argument
[   109.396] (WW) AMDGPU(0): Page flip failed: Invalid argument
[   148.350] (EE) event3  - AT Translated Set 2 keyboard: client bug: event processing lagging behind by 35ms, your system is too slow
[   194.866] [dix] EventToCore: Not implemented yet 
[   236.060] (EE) client bug: timer event12 tap: scheduled expiry is in the past (-488ms), your system is too slow
[   236.062] (EE) client bug: timer event12 tap: scheduled expiry is in the past (-490ms), your system is too slow
[   267.532] (EE) client bug: timer event12 tap: scheduled expiry is in the past (-488ms), your system is too slow
[   307.199] (EE) client bug: timer event12 tap: scheduled expiry is in the past (-488ms), your system is too slow
[   307.199] (EE) client bug: timer event12 hold: scheduled expiry is in the past (-628ms), your system is too slow
[   307.199] (EE) WARNING: log rate limit exceeded (5 msgs per 3600000ms). Discarding future messages.

Try to remove xf86-video-amdgpu

Samghouel · 2025-09-14 19:38:24

Removing xf86-video-amdgpu did not work. The new user account login led to the same blackscreen behaviour.

seth · 2025-09-14 20:00:17

The condition is rare
https://bugzilla.altlinux.org/46871
and to some extent
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/boot-to-bla … ue/134394/
are the only other instances.

pacman -Qikk kscreen libkscreen
pacman -Qm
sudo LC_ALL=C pacman -Qkk | grep -v ', 0 altered files' | grep -v backup

Arch Linux

#1 2025-09-14 13:29:29

blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#2 2025-09-14 13:52:25

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#3 2025-09-14 14:51:20

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#4 2025-09-14 18:16:28

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#5 2025-09-14 18:39:12

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#6 2025-09-14 18:42:39

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#7 2025-09-14 18:47:58

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#8 2025-09-14 18:49:56

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#9 2025-09-14 18:55:20

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#10 2025-09-14 18:59:31

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#11 2025-09-14 19:06:37

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#12 2025-09-14 19:15:41

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#13 2025-09-14 19:38:24

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

#14 2025-09-14 20:00:17

Re: blackscreen with cursor on display after logging in through sddm

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