Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

quequotion · 2015-07-19 17:44:46

EDIT again: Re-worded title, does this make more sense?

This started with a fresh install in which lightdm would not start at all (possibly because of lightdm-pantheon-greeter). lightdm will start now (with lightdm-gtk-greeter), but only when plymouth is not installed (there is no clear reason for the change in behavior, nor a reason why they aren't working together). Surely something is missing (from the Wiki). I have installed, configured, and removed both programs in precise concurrence with the Wiki a number of times.

Edit again: Annotated and improved the record of my installation process.

I tried to install arch with lightdm and plymouth like so:

-Installed arch successfully from the live cd (in accordance with the beginner's guide, the installation guide, and the tune2fs and ext4 manuals)
-Installed lightdm after first reboot (in a tty, in accordance with the page linked from general reccomendations -> display manager)
-Installed lightdm-pantheon-greeter (I am aware it has been unstable in the past, thought I'd give it another chance)
-Configured lightdm to use pantheon-greeter (in accordance with the display manager article, the lightdm article, the lightdm manpage, and Ubuntu's documentation)

At this point lightdm still did not appear at reboot, but I found that I had mistyped something (pantheon-lightem-greeter) in its config file (there was an error in lightdm's log), so I fixed that, then:

-Installed plymouth (in accordance with its wiki article and aur comments*). Maybe I should have rebooted first to check lightdm's configuration (with pantheon-lightdm-greeter). I did test lightdm/pantheon-greeter without plymouth later and it failed. I think the problem with lightdm-pantheon-greeter is unrelated to the problem with lightdm; probably just missing some unlisted run-time dependency.

Then, with plymouth and lightdm, not only does lightdm fail to start, but nothing happens after plymouth: the cursor blinks forever and no ttys will open (the screen does change over on ctl-alt-fN, but no terminals will open). The only way out is ctrl-alt-del, even sysreq keys are unresponsive. The system is clearly not frozen; but init has stopped.

After that I started tinkering:
-Configured systemd to start the lightdm-plymouth service (*noting that users in the AUR think the dm-plymouth.service scripts are becoming irrelevant; tried several boots with one service or the other, then both; no change)
-Symlinked the lightdm-plymouth service to display-manager.service for systemd (systemctl enable dm-slpash.service should have, done it, but didn't; no change)
-Installed lightdm-gtk-greeter (maybe there isn't a choice after all?)
-Configured lightdm to use lightdm-gtk-greeter (nope, no change, but the display-manager.service symlink started getting created correctly)

I tried a dozen other little things to tweak the already correct configurations of systemd, lightdm, mkinitcpio, both greeters, etc. No change.

Lightdm's logs are out of date, showing the typing mistake I fixed a hundred reboots ago. No idea how lightdm could be so lazy with logging.

For now, I've removed plymouth and blacked out as much of the boot process as I can. That's probably more time and power efficient than using Plymouth, but it's a bit unnerving: the blackout screen is identical to the one displayed when linux or the bootloader itself fail to load during boot. It stays that way for about 45 seconds (my boot time has always been a bit long); the dimmer goes all the way down (looks terminal).

Last edited by quequotion (2015-07-21 08:49:30)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2015-07-19 17:54:57

quequotion wrote:

-Installed plymouth

Did you follow all the steps listed on the ArchWiki page?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Plymouth

What is the output of:

systemctl status default.target
ls -l /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

jasonwryan · 2015-07-19 18:11:22

Not an Installation issue, moving to NC...

quequotion · 2015-07-19 18:32:26

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

Did you follow all the steps listed on the ArchWiki page?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Plymouth

To the letter. I have been at this for hours and I've scoured about all the pages the wiki has to offer on the subject. This shouldn't be happening; what's worse is that I know for sure the initial configuration was correct (although it did not work) and that every change I make is only more deviant and less likely to remedy the situation.

What is the output of:

systemctl status default.target
ls -l /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

I cannot access systemctl because no TTYs will open on the installed system and systemctl will not do anything when running in a chroot ("Running in chroot, ignoring request.")

The latter is the manual step I should never have had to do, as I mentioned in the first post. This symlink (to lightdm-plymouth.service) exists because I created it myself, which changed nothing.

I have installed archlinux, lightdm, systemd, plymouth, etc before and have experience with their configuration. I've worked out situations where lightdm wouldn't start and other strange behaviors before. I've never had a case this obstinate.

quequotion · 2015-07-19 18:39:16

Bonus: since I went with systemd-networkd for networking support this time, it's impossible to get DNS working for the arch-chroot in the live CD. I have added a warning about it to the wiki. Any idea how I can get dns to work so I can at least do package managment some way other than pacstrap?

I've tried to reconfigure networking every which way as well. It worked the one time I was able to boot to a tty (before installing plymouth) and will probably work in the properly booted system, but can't find any way to make it work with the live cd.

quequotion · 2015-07-19 18:56:17

i want very desperately to not have to* be doing this anymore...

*i tend to get overly fixated on obtaining certain objectives.

Last edited by quequotion (2015-07-21 08:54:04)

Raynman · 2015-07-19 19:17:00

quequotion wrote:

i want very desperately to not have to be doing this anymore...

Doing what? Kicking your thread every 10 minutes? Ask for a tmpban or something.

More on topic: I don't get the part about DNS. You seem to have no problems before chrooting and you mention the arch-chroot script that should make /etc/resolv.conf available in the chroot. Where does systemd-networkd come in and how does it mess things up?

And you said you fixed a typo and then you went on to install plymouth. Did lightdm work after fixing that typo or did you not even try before complicating matters with plymouth?

Chris Cromer · 2015-07-19 19:29:59

Did you enable the lightdm service?

systemctl enable lightdm

quequotion · 2015-07-19 19:41:29

Raynman wrote:

quequotion wrote:
i want very desperately to not have to be doing this anymore...
Doing what? Kicking your thread every 10 minutes?

Spending the next six hours working on a single installation of Archlinux, much like I spent the last six hours (and three weeks trying to salvage the previous installation before that..) You might think I'm just bumping my own thread in rage, but that's only half of it. This is disheartening; I really thought it would be possible to follow the instructions and end up with a working installation, but as usual it doesn't work out for me.

I don't get the part about DNS. You seem to have no problems before chrooting and you mention the arch-chroot script that should make /etc/resolv.conf available in the chroot. Where does systemd-networkd come in and how does it mess things up?

It's one of the options in the beginner's guide. I decided to relent to systemd wherever possible as resisting systemd seems to cause more problems down the line. I don't understand the mechanism of failure, but DNS will not be possible inside an arch-chroot from the livecd with this configuration. DHCP does give the adapter an address, and I can directly ping ips, but not domain names. I tried a few recommendations from the man page and elsewhere, but resolvconf just won't do it.

As I suspected this occurs only when accessing an installation (configured to use systemd-networkd) through a livecd (dhcpcd) arch-chroot. There's an error about the reslov.conf file. I don't think arch-chroot is taking systemd-networkd into account: the wiki suggests to make a symlink in /etc, but the arch-chroot script expects to mount the livecd's file there.

And you said you fixethen you went on to install plymouth. Did lightdm work after fixing that typo or did you not even try before complicating matters with plymouth?

No it didn't. Plymouth's role has been rather minor: it just prevents ttys from opening. I did try again after removing plymouth, the only change is that I now have tty access. Lightdm still fails with correct configuration. EDIT: Lightdm is working, but only when plymouth is not installed and only with lightdm-gtk-greeter (after swapping back and forth with lightdm-pantheon-greeter about a dozen times, it magically started working).

Chris Cromer wrote:

Did you enable the lightdm service?

This was in my first post. I tried several boots with this service enabled, then several with lightdm-plymouth, then with both; none made any difference. EDIT: Not that it's any help to me, but only one of the two services should ever be enabled.

I removed plymouth and lightdm and now I can boot to a tty, access systemctl, and the internet, so I guess I'll do all the same things the right way over and over again until they work.

EDIT: Reinstalled lightdm and did some install/purge cycles with lightdm-pantheon/gtk-greeter until one of them started working. All I did was uninstall, install, and configure the same way a dozen or so times; not very scientific, but apparently effective. *still no plymouth*

Last edited by quequotion (2015-07-21 08:55:04)

quequotion · 2015-07-20 01:45:57

When this issue starts affecting someone else, let me know.

I suspect something is wrong with their systemd targets.

It is not possible to login or fully boot when plymouth and lightdm are installed.

It is very sad and defeating, because there's no means to debug; not sure anything even gets logged (lightdm's logs always look too old). It's also extremely regular, happening absolutely every boot in which plymouth and lightdm are installed.

These things were made to work together, what gives?

Last edited by quequotion (2015-07-20 01:56:08)

satanselbow · 2015-07-20 10:50:19

quequotion wrote:

EDIT: Reinstalled lightdm and did some install/purge cycles with lightdm-pantheon/gtk-greeter until one of them started working. All I did was uninstall, install, and configure the same way a dozen or so times; not very scientific, but apparently effective.

Just as an infinite number of monkeys may eventually re-write Shakespeare, an infinite number of random tweaks will eventually make plymouth and lightdm work together. The alternative is to read, understand and accurately reproduce the steps outlined in the wiki.

Please prepend the original post title with "[SOLVED]".

quequotion · 2015-07-20 12:52:28

satanselbow wrote:

Please prepend the original post title with "[SOLVED]".

Well, I'd still like to be able to use plymouth. It doesn't work. It locks out all ttys. Wtf, for now I give up.

My boot goes like this: UEFI Screen -> Pitch Blackness (standby dim)... ... ... ..? ... -> LightDM! (yay, we made it!)

Solved?

satanselbow · 2015-07-20 14:46:12

You haven't read the wiki [previously linked] or comments on the the plymouth AUR page yet then?

quequotion · 2015-07-21 00:44:39

satanselbow wrote:

You haven't read the wiki [previously linked] or comments on the the plymouth AUR page yet then?

Why do you ask this question? How many times and how many ways do I have to say I've read it? There's no help there.

EDIT: I don't mean to sound offended. I know people often ask a question before doing any research. I read the pages, followed the recommendations, couldn't get a sucessful result--then I brought my grievances to the forum.

This is what I ususally do since switching to archlinix:

1. Do something in linux
2. Have a problem
3. Try all the fixes and workarounds I know
4. Research (Arch Wiki, Freedesktop, etc and plenty of google)
5. Try new ideas from research
6. Post on the forum

I'll admit I don't adhere strictly to this (sometimes I post in the middle of steps three and four, which often take place concurrently) and that I used to be the most hopeless of users in the Ubuntu forums, but I do try these days.

Last edited by quequotion (2015-07-21 01:05:33)

sesese9 · 2015-07-21 01:14:21

I actually just installed lightdm and the main thing that I found is you should have accountsservice installed for it to actually work. You do NOT need Plymouth for lightdm to work.

quequotion · 2015-07-21 08:40:17

sesese9 wrote:

I actually just installed lightdm and the main thing that I found is you should have accountsservice installed for it to actually work. You do NOT need Plymouth for lightdm to work.

Yeah, lightdm loads fine as long as plymouth isn't installed.

I want to install plymouth and lightdm together and have a slick boot to login transition; that's my objective.

Arch Linux

#1 2015-07-19 17:44:46

Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#2 2015-07-19 17:54:57

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#3 2015-07-19 18:11:22

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#4 2015-07-19 18:32:26

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#5 2015-07-19 18:39:16

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#6 2015-07-19 18:56:17

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#7 2015-07-19 19:17:00

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#8 2015-07-19 19:29:59

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#9 2015-07-19 19:41:29

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#10 2015-07-20 01:45:57

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#11 2015-07-20 10:50:19

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#12 2015-07-20 12:52:28

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#13 2015-07-20 14:46:12

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#14 2015-07-21 00:44:39

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#15 2015-07-21 01:14:21

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

#16 2015-07-21 08:40:17

Re: Plymouth halts boot before LightDM

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