[Solved] Boot shows emergency console

james-h-arch · 2022-06-17 07:49:24

I've been using Arch for a few months now.

Yesterday I ran a full upgrade:

pacman -Syu

The upgrade seemed to go okay.

However, today Arch does not boot properly. I see the console message "You are in emergency mode".

I logged into the emergency console. I checked the journal and saw a couple of things:

Error "Failed to start Load Kernel Modules". I guess this is why Arch is not booting properly.
Linux kernel version is inconsistent. Journal shows: Linux version 5.17.9-arch1-1. "uname -r" also shows: 5.17.9-arch1-1 However "pacman -Q" shows: linux 5.18.3.arch1-1

I had a similar problem the last time I did a full upgrade. I worked around it okay last time by:

pacman -Sy linux

I tried the same workaround today and no dice; the same "emergency mode" console message appears.

I guess I have some messy configuration somewhere and need to tidy it up.

I need a bit of guidance with the tidy-up and with hopefully avoiding similar problems in future.

Last edited by james-h-arch (2022-06-18 11:55:24)

james-h-arch · 2022-06-17 07:58:11

Edit: Here's a link to the full journal: https://pastebin.com/jDDdk78v

james-h-arch · 2022-06-18 11:54:59

Found it.

I'm using systemd-boot. It requires the kernel image to be on the EFI partition.

My linux system update refreshed kernel image on the root partition only, and not the copy on the EFI partition.

Solution was to simply copy the new kernel image & initramfs files over to the EFI partition.

Machine then booted fine. uname -r and pacman -Q both reported the same updated kernel version.

(This post helped point me in the right direction: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=270312)

Arch Linux