[SOLVED] SDDM not starting

johan.cb · 2016-07-10 21:29:28

INFO: bug not Arch related since it appears in all distros with SDDM > 12. Marking thread as solved

Greetings!

I'm new to Arch Linux but managed to install the base system and the Plasma 5 desktop environment thanks to the documentation.

My problem is that SDDM is not starting, here is my output:

[16:19:51.525] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[16:19:51.537] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[16:19:51.537] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display on vt 1 ...
[16:19:51.538] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[16:19:51.538] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{5526c841-55d4-43fd-8024-498a8569bc15} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 vt1
[16:19:51.549] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[16:19:51.552] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[16:19:51.552] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[16:19:51.553] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[16:19:51.553] (WW) DAEMON: Failed to change owner of the socket
[16:19:51.553] (II) DAEMON: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{5526c841-55d4-43fd-8024-498a8569bc15}"
[16:19:51.564] (WW) DAEMON: Failed to change owner of the auth file.
[16:19:51.565] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopped.
[16:19:51.565] (II) DAEMON: Running display stop script "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop"
[16:19:54.540] (WW) DAEMON: Signal received: SIGINT

The X server seems to be working since I am able to lauch it with the command startx.

I am also able to start Plasma 5.7 with Wayland but the desktop environment is not usable.

Thank you for your help!

Johan

Last edited by johan.cb (2016-08-30 22:04:54)

alive4ever · 2016-07-11 05:46:39

How did you start sddm? You need to start sddm as systemd service, not by running 'sddm' command.
First, you need to enable sddm.service and restart Arch Linux.

# systemctl enable sddm
# systemctl reboot

By enabling the 'sddm.service', sddm login greeter will always be shown.

johan.cb · 2016-07-11 06:09:01

Hello alive4ever,

In fact I tried to start SDDM with the "SDDM" command. When I enable the sddm.service I am greeted with a black screen and no way to escape to an other virtual terminal. The only solution I have found from here was to reinstall Arch.

I assumed that the command "systemctl start sddm.service" would have the same result without being permanent. But the result in the same, I get a black screen.

madpierre · 2016-07-11 06:48:23

Do you have an NVIDIA card?

johan.cb · 2016-07-11 07:02:32

Hello madpierre,

I have a discrete AMD Radeon HD6xxx (driver: radeon) and an integrated Intel HD Graphics adapter (driver: i915).

madpierre · 2016-07-11 07:03:59

Hello johan.cb

Oh well. So much for the quick fix.

johan.cb · 2016-07-11 07:14:26

From the following two lines I concluded that I may have a permission issue somewhere but it's only a supposition:

[16:19:51.553] (WW) DAEMON: Failed to change owner of the socket
[16:19:51.564] (WW) DAEMON: Failed to change owner of the auth file.

madpierre · 2016-07-11 07:41:17

johan.cb writes:
...I concluded that I may have a permission issue somewhere...

At first glance this appears to be the case. However, I suspect there may be a video driver issue- conflicts, missing dependencies, etc. I'm not familiar with Radeon so I'm of little assistance. However, I encourage you to keep thinking and researching. There are some pretty sharp folks on this forum and soon one or more will share their wisdom. Patience- easy to say; hard to maintain.

Last edited by madpierre (2016-07-11 07:43:35)

johan.cb · 2016-07-11 14:55:52

Thank you very much for your help

I just tried LightDM and the result is the same... I only get a black screen. I have reinstalled almost every package I installed with no succes.

Last edited by johan.cb (2016-07-11 14:56:05)

ewaller · 2016-07-11 15:00:51

johan.cb wrote:

Hello alive4ever,
In fact I tried to start SDDM with the "SDDM" command. When I enable the sddm.service I am greeted with a black screen and no way to escape to an other virtual terminal. The only solution I have found from here was to reinstall Arch.
I assumed that the command "systemctl start sddm.service" would have the same result without being permanent. But the result in the same, I get a black screen.

Did you try Ctrl-Alt-F2 ? That is likely to take you directly to a console (console 2)
Rather than reinstall, you could have:

Passed the kernel command line parameter systemd.unit=multi-user from your boot loader. This causes systemd to stop at the mult-user level rather than progress all the way to the graphical level.
Booted from the install media, mounted your root partition on /mnt, and removed the appropriate link from /mnt/etc/systemd/system/
Change root into your system and use systemctl disable ... to disable the service.

This is not Windows. A full reinstall is *almost* never the correct course of action.

Last edited by ewaller (2016-07-11 15:26:33)

johan.cb · 2016-07-11 15:04:05

Hello ewaller,

In fact I tried Ctrl + Alt + Fx with no succes, everything seems to be completely frozen once the sddm.service is running.

Thanks for your tip on how to boot again without reinstalling!

johan.cb · 2016-07-11 16:25:24

I just ruled out X.org and driver problems by installing GDM.

Worked instantly!

Any idea what could be wrong with sddm?

alive4ever · 2016-07-12 12:13:15

johan.cb wrote:

Hello alive4ever,
In fact I tried to start SDDM with the "SDDM" command. When I enable the sddm.service I am greeted with a black screen and no way to escape to an other virtual terminal. The only solution I have found from here was to reinstall Arch.
I assumed that the command "systemctl start sddm.service" would have the same result without being permanent. But the result in the same, I get a black screen.

johan.cb wrote:

Thank you very much for your help
I just tried LightDM and the result is the same... I only get a black screen. I have reinstalled almost every package I installed with no succes.

johan.cb wrote:

I just ruled out X.org and driver problems by installing GDM.
Worked instantly!
Any idea what could be wrong with sddm?

Nothing wrong with sddm. It's just sddm has fewer dependency than gdm and it seems that sddm needs kernel modesetting support on the gpu.
If gdm works fine, you don't have to use sddm and mark this as solved.

johan.cb · 2016-07-12 13:07:43

GDM works fine but loads a 100 mega bytes of GNOME-related stuff into my system memory that I don't need nor want.

The situation is thus not ideal...

alive4ever · 2016-07-12 14:34:24

johan.cb wrote:

GDM works fine but loads a 100 mega bytes of GNOME-related stuff into my system memory that I don't need nor want.
The situation is thus not ideal...

That's because gdm is heavily dependent on gnome components.
After installing gdm, can you just temporarily stop gdm.service and start sddm? To do this, you should be able to launch a virtual console by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 (you'll need xf86-video-amdgpu and xf86-video-ati installed).

The sddm wiki mentions that there was a bug report mentioning that using zsh as default shell causes sddm to show only blank screen (SDDM#352). Did you change your shell into zsh? If so, it's probably related to the bug report.

In addition, to test that sddm-greeter is actually working, you should be able to launch sddm theme such as maui or breeze under a windowed environment.

$ sddm-greeter --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/breeze/

Last edited by alive4ever (2016-07-12 14:41:59)

johan.cb · 2016-07-14 16:15:01

Hello alive4ever,

I was unable to start SDDM after stopping GDM and I am not using zsh as default shell.

The SDDM greeter worked with your command.

armandopk · 2016-07-18 14:16:38

Hi, yesterday i had the same problem, only GDM started. SDDM, Slim, lightdgm crash with the black screen, the solution for me was reset the video configuration, delete the file Xorg.conf and generate it by default, in few words, delete all the video configuration and try it.

johan.cb · 2016-07-18 17:04:06

The only Xorg files I have are located at usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/

All other directories are empty.

Should I delete following files: 10-amdgpu.conf 10-evdev.conf 10-quirks.conf 50-joystick.conf 50-vmmouse.conf 60-libinput.conf 70-synaptics.conf ?

armandopk · 2016-07-18 18:53:20

johan.cb wrote:

The only Xorg files I have are located at usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/
All other directories are empty.
Should I delete following files: 10-amdgpu.conf 10-evdev.conf 10-quirks.conf 50-joystick.conf 50-vmmouse.conf 60-libinput.conf 70-synaptics.conf ?

You must make a backup of these files, and one by one delete. If you have problems when boot or with systemd after of delete one, add the words "rw emergency" in the end of the line of kernel in the grub, and you will restore them (Only if you have problems)...So you can try if one of these file are with problems in you session manager.

PD: Reading in other sites, try installing Kernel-lts..

Last edited by armandopk (2016-07-21 04:48:14)

johan.cb · 2016-07-28 16:33:25

Hello armandopk,

Sorry for not responding in the last days.

I tried what you said without success. When I remove the files mentioned in post #19 I am not even able to start GDM anymore.

johan.cb · 2016-08-30 15:31:47

After some tests I figured out that I'm not able to start any KDE and thus SDDM powered GNU/Linux distribution anymore. Issue appeared after SDDM version > 12. I will report the issue upstream and hope that it is the best place for it.

Thank you very much for your precious help, marking as CLOSED.

Johan

jasonwryan · 2016-08-30 16:21:37

Please don't use [Closed], it denotes a locked thread. Use solved instead.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-07-10 21:29:28

[SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#2 2016-07-11 05:46:39

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#3 2016-07-11 06:09:01

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#4 2016-07-11 06:48:23

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#5 2016-07-11 07:02:32

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#6 2016-07-11 07:03:59

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#7 2016-07-11 07:14:26

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#8 2016-07-11 07:41:17

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#9 2016-07-11 14:55:52

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#10 2016-07-11 15:00:51

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#11 2016-07-11 15:04:05

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#12 2016-07-11 16:25:24

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#13 2016-07-12 12:13:15

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#14 2016-07-12 13:07:43

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#15 2016-07-12 14:34:24

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#16 2016-07-14 16:15:01

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#17 2016-07-18 14:16:38

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#18 2016-07-18 17:04:06

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#19 2016-07-18 18:53:20

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#20 2016-07-28 16:33:25

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#21 2016-08-30 15:31:47

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

#22 2016-08-30 16:21:37

Re: [SOLVED] SDDM not starting

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