Arch Linux

KerrickStaley

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 31

[Solved] After update, GDM doesn't load, laptop unusable

I recently ran pacman -Syu on my laptop. Now, it exhibits the following behavior:
* Usually (~80% of the time) the laptop doesn't finish the boot process. It stays in text mode and you can see various systemd log messages, including "Reached target Muti-User system" and "Reached target Graphical Interface". There are no error messages however. You can't switch to a virtual console at this point. The only input the laptop responds to is the power button, which causes it to shut off. So the laptop is unusable.
* 20% of the time, it boots to GDM normally. When this happens, you can usually log in normally, but sometimes GDM won't let you open a session (it just goes back to user-select screen after you enter your password) and you have to restart GDM in a virtual console.

I've been poking at journalctl logs from successful and unsuccessful boots, but I haven't seen much of a consistent pattern so far. Sometimes gnome-shell dumps core, but this happens (and doesn't happen) for both successful and unsuccessful boots, so it seems uncorrelated with the issue. One log message that does seem to happen consistently when the system fails to boot is:

pam_systemd(gdm-launch-environment:session): Failed to create session: Start job for unit user-120.slice failed with 'canceled'

But I'm not sure this message points to the root cause, it may just be a symptom.

Next I'm going to upload some logs from failed and successful boots to this forum thread, and then I'll try downgrading GDM. Does anyone have any other suggestions that I should try here?

Last edited by KerrickStaley (2018-07-09 04:57:28)

KerrickStaley

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 31

Re: [Solved] After update, GDM doesn't load, laptop unusable

One important thing I forgot to mention: the laptop is a Dell Precision 5520, which has an Nvidia graphics card. Here are logs from failed and successful boots:
Log from failed boot 1
Log from failed boot 2
Log from successful boot 1
Log from successful boot 2

KerrickStaley

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 31

Re: [Solved] After update, GDM doesn't load, laptop unusable

Downgrading gdm from 3.28.2-2 to 3.28.1-1 (which is a few months old) didn't fix the issue unfortunately.

jasonwryan

Anarchist

From: .nz

Registered: 2009-05-09

Posts: 30,424

Website

Re: [Solved] After update, GDM doesn't load, laptop unusable

Stop bumping your thread: use the edit button to add information. And please remove the stupid emoticon from the title:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post

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KerrickStaley

Member

Registered: 2011-01-26

Posts: 31

Re: [Solved] After update, GDM doesn't load, laptop unusable

The issue seems to be the same described in this thread. I tried both changes suggested in that thread: I downgraded systemd and libsystemd to version 238, and uncommented "WaylandEnable=false" in /etc/gdm/custom.conf, and the laptop consistently boots successfully to GDM now.

More information in the flyswatter bug.

ElectricPrism

Member

Registered: 2012-12-07

Posts: 35

Re: [Solved] After update, GDM doesn't load, laptop unusable

I encountered an  error with the exact same vague journalctl -xe debug info.

For me, there was a permission problem in `/var/lib/gdm/` where files were owned by root and not GDM, after chmodding them back to user `gdm` I can now boot after being locked out of GDM & Gnome for a month+. Hope this helps others encountering  this issue as a possible alternative problem & solution.