Blank screen after kernel update

DarkLite1 · 2014-06-09 11:58:11

Dear Archers, I'm sorry for asking your help but I'm really stuck here.

What happened? I did an update like usual and a new updated kernel was installed. The pacman process 'pacman -Syu' did not completely finish for one reason or another and hang on the part 'linux', so I had to abort it after an hour by using CTRL+C. After this, I was left with an unbootable system saying at TTY1 "Unable to find root device..." and "failed to load ...modules'. Even switching to TTY2 or typing in the terminal was not possible.

Gladly for me I was able to fix this problem by booting the Arch live USB and chroot in my system. From there I ran 'mkinitcpio -p linux', re-installed my GRUB2 (there were some problems with it) and now it's all fine and booting well. The only problem remaining is the fact that the system boots into a blank screen. No error message, nothing.

When trying to consult 'journalctl' there is nothing mentioned about an error or problem. So my initial thought was that there was something wrong with X. But nothing had changed for the Xorg.conf file so I thought that maybe the Nvidia modules where not loaded/configured correctly. Which makes me install 'nvidia-hook' as described in the Wiki and I've added 'nivida' to my 'hooks' in mkinitcpio. After running the command again all went well and the modules are configured. But I still arrive at a blank screen and now I'm really out of ideas what could be the culprit here...

Extra info: I use GDM that boots straight into Gnome. It says after boot:

[OK] ...
[OK] Started GNOME display manager
[OK] Reached target graphical interface

and then a blank screen

Thank you for any guidance or help you could give me.

Last edited by DarkLite1 (2014-06-09 12:24:31)

jwm-art · 2014-06-09 12:16:29

/var/log/Xorg.log ?
And did you try to finish update?

Last edited by jwm-art (2014-06-09 12:19:03)

DarkLite1 · 2014-06-09 12:30:02

Thank you for your help but I don't think it has something to do with Xorg.conf, as it was working fine before the update. But I checked it anyway, there's no file in /var/log/... that starts with Xorg. So I guess there are no xorg errors to be reported. To answer your second question, yes I finished the 'pacman -Syu' after doing the chroot part as indicated above.

Last edited by DarkLite1 (2014-06-09 12:30:42)

jwm-art · 2014-06-09 13:48:17

Can you verify X *still* starts? Did you try starting X without GDM, via startx or by a different display manager, ie XDM? You did sudo journalctl -b and not just journalctl -b didn't you? There should be an Xorg.0.log file in /var/log. File system full? /tmp full? /tmp wrong perms? (https://help.gnome.org/admin/gdm/stable … #wontstart)

DarkLite1 · 2014-06-09 14:28:47

X still exists, I tried:

systemctl disable gdm
systemctl enable lightdm

After this change I rebooted and the system fires up lightdm after wich I see the lightdm interface graphically and I can enter my username and password. When clicking on OK to logon, I arrive on a black screen with a sad face saying 'Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occured and the system can't recover. All extensions have been disables as a precaution.' with a 'Log Out' button. On top of this screen my Conky screen pops-up.

When I try to logon with Gnome-Classic, I have the same sad face greeting me after lightdm received my credentials. It's the same as this problem described here https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1270468

The fact that I can see this as a non terminal thing, means my X is fine. So it might be related to a problem within Gnome or the Gnome session... No one else has this problem? Isn't there a way to re-initialise Gnome or it's session?

I tried already reinstalling Gnome, the Gnome-Bluetooth package a resported in the other thread but to no avail.

Last edited by DarkLite1 (2014-06-09 14:45:50)

DarkLite1 · 2014-06-09 15:16:15

After some playing around I found the following errors in 'journalctl -b':

/user/bin/gnome-shell: error while loading shared libraries: libnm-util.so.2: cannotopen shared object file: No such file or directory
WARNING: App 'gnome-shell.desktop' exited with code 127
Unrecoverable failure in required component gnome-shell.desktop
** (gnome-session-failed:949): WARNING **: Couldn't register with accessibilty bus: Did not receive a reply ...
nm-applet: error while loading shared libraries: libnm-glib.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
** (canberra-gtk-play:961) WARNING: **: Couldn't register with accessibilty bus: Did not receive a reply ...
/usr/lib/tracker/tracker-extract: error while loading shared libraries: libnm-glib.so.4: cannot open shared object file
gnome-session[821]: Glib-CRITICAL: g_environ_setenv: assertion 'value != NULL' failed

Last edited by DarkLite1 (2014-06-09 15:22:19)

DarkLite1 · 2014-06-11 15:12:01

Really, no one has an idea for troubleshooting this?

Andy_Crowd · 2014-06-11 15:50:40

When I am getting errors like this I use to do those steps
Use pacman -Syyu
1) Create a new user, login and start X server
2) Test with and other Window manager / Desktop manager
3) Reinstall Kernel

pacman -S linux linux-api-headers linux-firmware linux-headers

and then Graphic card drivers. Don't forget to reboot after reinstalling them.
4) Reinstall X server
5) start Window manager with command line like this, startx /usr/bin/openbox-session (for openbox, you can try to install it and see if it will work).
6) Remove your current Desktop manager (not disable/enable ... I don't trust so much this way and I want be sure by renaming their config files or making backup of them or whole folder with settings and then uninstalling or reinstalling them) and install some other or just run from command line login.

Reinstall Gnome and GTK

Last edited by Andy_Crowd (2014-06-11 16:13:09)

DarkLite1 · 2014-06-11 16:24:10

Thank you for your help Andy_Crowd, but to no avail. I tried all you suggested:
- New user
- Reinstall kernel
- Reinstall Gnome-Shell but delete it completely first
- pacman -Syyu
- ...

I'm really out of ideas here... I think I'll have to start over again. For one reason or another I can't seem to keep it running Arch. It's a great distro but maybe it's just not for me

Thank you all guys, and maybe untill another attempt.

Andy_Crowd · 2014-06-11 17:15:57

Try to remove GTK, it will remove even other applications that depends on GTK, but you can reinstall them late.

Should do a full clean up of the Gnome, GTK and all that depends on them:

pacman -Rusn gtk gtk2 gtk3 gnome gnome-extra gnome-shell gnome-shell-extensions lightdm gdm
pacman -R $(pacman -Qdtq)
paccache -ruk0
#This should find and remove broken symlinks
find -L /usr -type l -delete

Gnome depends on GTK and it should be removed as depends, I think, but I am not sure.
And then reboot and install gnome again.

Last edited by Andy_Crowd (2014-06-11 17:51:50)

DarkLite1 · 2014-06-11 17:38:14

Damn$*!ç I removed it all like you suggested, reboooted and the machine whent haywire After trying to get to TTY2 I finally got in and reinstalled Gnome. While all settled down I was feeling lucky, but I end up after GDM at the same sad smiley as before It has to be Gnome related.. These should be a command to purge all of Gnome. Anyway, thanks again for your help.

Andy_Crowd · 2014-06-11 17:46:07

Will you have more then one user on your computer? Otherwise you can use text mode login and make an alias to gnome and skip using GDM or any other desktop manager.
If you getting problems with logging in TTY then you can run pacman -S base, sometimes when doing cleanups like this it might remove many more then needed including some of important files for the basic management/functionality.

/// After I tested Gnome in the Linux Mint I began to dislike it very much.. got a lot of tubles.. now I am using lightweights Window Managers like OpenBox with XFCE plugins. Good for games to maximize PC performance, very low CPU and memory usage, but a little harder to configure and probably will look more ugly for them who likes to use a mouse. But very easy to reinstall and restore config files from backup.

Last edited by Andy_Crowd (2014-06-11 17:54:12)

Arch Linux

#1 2014-06-09 11:58:11

Blank screen after kernel update

#2 2014-06-09 12:16:29

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#3 2014-06-09 12:30:02

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#4 2014-06-09 13:48:17

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#5 2014-06-09 14:28:47

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#6 2014-06-09 15:16:15

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#7 2014-06-11 15:12:01

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#8 2014-06-11 15:50:40

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#9 2014-06-11 16:24:10

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#10 2014-06-11 17:15:57

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#11 2014-06-11 17:38:14

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

#12 2014-06-11 17:46:07

Re: Blank screen after kernel update

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