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#1 2015-10-20 18:32:07

embmicro
Member
Registered: 2014-07-30
Posts: 23

GDM fails to start, gnome acting strange.

I'm not sure if this is related to https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=203416 but I don't even get a login prompt now so it doesn't seem like it.

When I boot it gets stuck after "Reached target Graphical Interface." Ctrl+alt+F2 lets me login and I'm able to start gnome with "startx". However in gnome, some applications fail to open (like the terminal) while others open but are very sluggish (like chrome).

The journal output for GDM is paraphrased below.

Starting....
Started 
Child process -353 was already dead.
Child process 343 was already dead.
Unable to kill session worker process
gdm-launch-environment][441]: pam_systemd(gdm-launch-environment: session): Failed to create session: Resource deadlock avoided

I tried reinstalling a bunch of things but I haven't been able to make any headway. Yesterday I updated everything which included the Linux kernel (4.2.2-1->4.2.3-1) and gnome (3.16->3.18).

EDIT: I was able to get things working again by switching from nvidia's drivers to the nouveau drivers.

Last edited by embmicro (2015-10-20 18:51:04)

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#2 2015-10-21 06:40:16

amatas
Member
Registered: 2015-10-21
Posts: 3

Re: GDM fails to start, gnome acting strange.

Same here.

In my case, if I do "systemctl restart gdm" in another tty it works again. But I don't know why it fails at boot time.

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#3 2015-10-21 07:55:41

riggt
Member
Registered: 2015-10-20
Posts: 21

Re: GDM fails to start, gnome acting strange.

I had a similar issue that I outlined in this post. The main difference for me was that GDM failed at boot, it failed to start manually, it just failed in general. Long story short of this post was that I edited

/etc/gdm/custom.conf

as follows:

# GDM configuration storage

[daemon]
# Uncoment the line below to force the login screen to use Xorg
WaylandEnable=false

[security]

[xdmcp]

[greeter]

[chooser]

[debug]
# Uncomment the line below to turn on debugging
#Enable=true

What this does is disable wayland, which I wasn't using. If you ARE using wayland, don't do this. I'm however assuming that anyone using this thread is not using wayland because the original poster mentioned using startx in order to get gnome running.


- riggt

Avatar sourced from XKCD under creative commons licensing.

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#4 2015-10-21 09:17:39

salafrance
Member
From: Aelfang's Barrow
Registered: 2013-04-17
Posts: 43

Re: GDM fails to start, gnome acting strange.

I've just tried this, and it worked. I have an Nvidia graphics card, and the 'need to hit escape' bug after login persists, but gdm now starts, whereas previously, I needed to do a systemctl restart after boot.

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#5 2015-10-22 09:34:23

caseyjp1
Member
From: Denver
Registered: 2009-12-22
Posts: 35
Website

Re: GDM fails to start, gnome acting strange.

That (custom.conf) edit worked here as well.  TYVM for that. What, gnome thinks that nvidia just magically went away?  -le'sigh.

Last edited by caseyjp1 (2015-10-22 09:34:47)

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#6 2015-10-28 23:12:50

wuxb
Member
Registered: 2012-09-13
Posts: 29

Re: GDM fails to start, gnome acting strange.

salafrance wrote:

I've just tried this, and it worked. I have an Nvidia graphics card, and the 'need to hit escape' bug after login persists, but gdm now starts, whereas previously, I needed to do a systemctl restart after boot.

It shows same symptoms on my computer. However my graphic card is from ATI.

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#7 2015-10-29 08:59:14

amatas
Member
Registered: 2015-10-21
Posts: 3

Re: GDM fails to start, gnome acting strange.

riggt wrote:

I had a similar issue that I outlined in this post. The main difference for me was that GDM failed at boot, it failed to start manually, it just failed in general. Long story short of this post was that I edited

/etc/gdm/custom.conf

as follows:

# GDM configuration storage

[daemon]
# Uncoment the line below to force the login screen to use Xorg
WaylandEnable=false

[security]

[xdmcp]

[greeter]

[chooser]

[debug]
# Uncomment the line below to turn on debugging
#Enable=true

What this does is disable wayland, which I wasn't using. If you ARE using wayland, don't do this. I'm however assuming that anyone using this thread is not using wayland because the original poster mentioned using startx in order to get gnome running.

It works for me, I have an ATI card using open source drivers.

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#8 2015-10-29 11:30:51

johnpiers
Member
From: Somerset West, Cape Town
Registered: 2012-07-22
Posts: 35

Re: GDM fails to start, gnome acting strange.

@riggt: Thanks for this solution, it definitely worked for me. The custom.conf did not have this line (WaylandEnable=false) in it at all, added it, saved, restarted and everything is more or less back to normal!

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