Arch Linux

caligo

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2010-01-10

Posts: 79

[Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

Since last night, I have the weirdest problem. I can no longer log into Gnome using my main account – I am met with the oh so delightful 'Oh no, something went wrong' screen, and that's as far as I get. However, I can log in without any problems using the Gnome on Wayland session. Also, a newly created user can log into a regular X11 session of Gnome just fine. I didn't find anything obviously strange when poking around the logs (but in all likelihood I just missed something). I tested replacing GDM with LightDM, and that allowed me to log in to the regular Gnome session just fine – for a few hours that is, now the same problem occurs when using LightDM. I didn't find anything directly similar when searching the forum and google. What I did try to no avail, based on some problems that where vaguely similar, was to uncomment the 'WaylandEnable=False' option in '/etc/gdm/custom.conf'.

I can kind of live with using Wayland – most things work, after all – but there are still a few rough corners that I'd rather not have to deal with if I have the choice. Anyone else experiencing something similar?

Last edited by caligo (2015-11-03 12:46:32)

Bradan

Member

Registered: 2015-10-13

Posts: 21

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

Same here. Downgrading gdm to 3.16.2-1 solved the issue, but gnome starts on a different tty then and you have to switch around a bit.

caligo

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2010-01-10

Posts: 79

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

The weird thing is, GDM was last updated in the repositories five days ago. According to my pacman log, the GDM package on my system was upgraded to version 3.18.0-1 on the 9th, and it ran just fine on the 10th and 11th. According to the logs, this was what was upgraded on the 11th (the day after which the problem occured):

[2015-10-11 12:57] [ALPM] upgraded mesa (11.0.2-1 -> 11.0.3-1)
[2015-10-11 12:57] [ALPM] upgraded mesa-libgl (11.0.2-1 -> 11.0.3-1)
[2015-10-11 12:57] [ALPM] upgraded clutter-gst (3.0.12-1 -> 3.0.14-1)
[2015-10-11 12:57] [ALPM] upgraded gnome-maps (3.18.0.1-1 -> 3.18.1-1)
[2015-10-11 12:57] [ALPM] upgraded lib32-mesa (11.0.2-1 -> 11.0.3-1)
[2015-10-11 12:57] [ALPM] upgraded lib32-mesa-libgl (11.0.2-1 -> 11.0.3-1)

Both clutter and mesa are related to graphics and drawing the desktop correctly, so maybe those are more likely culprits. But it does not explain why your problem was solved by downgrading GDM, nor why mine was temporalily solved by switching to another display manager.

Last edited by caligo (2015-10-13 10:10:06)

Bradan

Member

Registered: 2015-10-13

Posts: 21

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

Sorry it was my fault. The problem is still there, even after downgrading gdm, but a restart of gdm helps (systemctl restart gdm). That's maybe why downgrading helped once, since I had to restart gdm.

Last edited by Bradan (2015-10-14 06:59:38)

caligo

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2010-01-10

Posts: 79

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

Hm, strange – to me, restarting gdm from another tty does nothing (except for some graphical glitches during the restart and my CPU fan ramping up like crazy).

Last edited by caligo (2015-10-14 12:02:52)

Bradan

Member

Registered: 2015-10-13

Posts: 21

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

Well I still have the downgraded gdm version which I restart all the time to get in. Maybe I should switch to wayland, but I don't really know how and the wiki doesn't really tell me how to switch from Xorg to wayland at all. Are we the only two experiencing this issue?

Last edited by Bradan (2015-10-14 16:44:51)

cell

Member

Registered: 2007-10-23

Posts: 111

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

I assume the same have happed to me after updating today.

I have had another strange and perhaps related issue as of late. But I have done absolutely nothing to search for a solution because it was not critical. When ever I would reboot, my screen would get and stay black on boot up. Not deep black, but grayish. All I had to do to fix it was to turn off my monitor and switch it back on. Voilà.

So anyway, after todays update I get to the gnome login screen, when logging it hangs for a while, if I do get in, the environment is practically frozen. I can switch fine to tty.

I don't know where to start but if get the time and figure anything out I'll be sure to report back...good luck!

edit words and English is hard

Last edited by cell (2015-10-14 17:56:47)

cell

Member

Registered: 2007-10-23

Posts: 111

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=203416

^This most be at least my issue. I hang on a gray screen when logging in. If I press escape, I move along. And for now all seem fine.

Bradan

Member

Registered: 2015-10-13

Posts: 21

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

Well, it works again now, but the transition between gdm and gnome-shell is really slow and I have to switch to tty3 and tty2 then to get to gnome.

caligo

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2010-01-10

Posts: 79

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

I was hoping that some update would just solve the whole thing, but so far no dice. I've temporarily migrated to XFCE, since Gnome under Wayland comes with to many small annoyances at the moment (and some bigger ones, like LibreOffice refusing to work). I find nothing obvious in the logs, and I'm really at a loss to what might have caused the problem. I've tried reverting Gnome to the default settings, as well as disabling all autostart programs, but the end result is apparently that same "Oh no…"-screen.

Jauch

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2010-12-14

Posts: 57

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

I experienced the same thing in a virtualbox Arch linux. Right now, I tried to reinstall, but it refuses to work properly.
On my main machine at home, I upgraded a few days ago. When I started the computer today, it hangs when say it reachs the network.
If I change to start in command line, it works.

What is happening with Gnome????

Jauch

Member

From: Portugal

Registered: 2010-12-14

Posts: 57

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

OK... I uninstalled the NVIDIA drivers and everything started to work again in my main computer...

caligo

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2010-01-10

Posts: 79

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

For me at least, it has something to do with either the display manager or something closely related to it. If I switch from GDM to LDM and reboot the computer, I can log into Gnome just fine. However, once I've shut down the computer, Gnome breaks when I start it again and try to log in.

sudohawk

Member

Registered: 2015-10-21

Posts: 6

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

I'm having this issue as well.  I tried uninstalling nvidia but it still seems to be present.  I'm a bit of a noob learning linux right now so maybe I didnt uninstall it properly though.  When this started happening I also noticed that when using the tweak tool the drop down menus (like when selecting Icons/themes) instantly close upon clicking.  It flickers open then closes.  I can double click it and it'll flicker and stay open but I believe this is related.  Furthermore some applications wont even open anymore.  These are all things that started happening at the same time.  I believe that it is nvidia related, again still learning linux but I believe these all happened when nvidia updated for me.

caligo

Member

From: Stockholm

Registered: 2010-01-10

Posts: 79

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

It appears to work for me now, but I have no idea why – no Gnome packages have been updated in a while, so any guess at what caused the problem will be pretty much a shot in the dark as far as I can see.

I'm tentatively marking the issue as solved. The problem some other posters have had seems to be nvidia-related, which was not the case for me since I'm using the integrated Intel graphics.

Bradan

Member

Registered: 2015-10-13

Posts: 21

Re: [Solved?][Gnome 3.18] Can not start Gnome X11 session…

I wonder if they know about this bug whereever it should be fixed. It really annoys me that I always have to do this now:

1. Login in gdm
2. Wait for the login controls to disappear
3. Switch to tty2 where the gnome-shell appears after a while

The "Oh no" problem is gone for me, but this is still present.