"Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

Ride Garcher · 2023-12-17 23:18:12

Let me preface this by saying that I have been using Arch for a very short time.
I was quietly using Arch with kernel hardened with kde and all of a sudden I get a singular problem, which is that the system no longer accepts any actions.
I click firefox, it seems to load but nothing starts, same thing with konsole. I even try to click shutdown and nothing happens.
I then decide to manually reboot from the pc case, but then booting Arch again I go to select the kernel in grub and as a result it tells me "Recovering jounal", along with other instructions on blocks, but it doesn't go on.

How to fix it? i thought of booting a live usb of Arch and using chroot but i don't know where to start to identify and fix the problem.

Last edited by Ride Garcher (2024-04-26 16:14:49)

Head_on_a_Stick · 2023-12-18 07:27:34

Load up the live ISO and check the journal in the installed system: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/System … al_to_view

Share the contents here if you can't make sense of them. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/list_o … ted_client

And if you were running kernel 6.6.5 then try a full upgrade from the chroot, that kernel version had a wireless regression that might be relevant here. Try a full upgrade anyway, just in case you were using partial upgrades.

Wild Penguin · 2023-12-18 11:09:43

I believe the "recovering journal" happens when it tries to make heads or tails on the journaling filesystem you have in the root, probably ext4 (not that someone implied otherwise - it is a good idea to look at the system journal).

6.6.5 indeed did have wireless issues which could case various kind of apparent hanging, but it should not cause a hang at that stage during a boot.

To me this, unfortunately, reeks like HW failure (but could be anything, really). It is still worthwhile to try via a live USB. But before chrooting, my suggestion would be to check the SMART data, In case everything looks fine, only then proceed with an fsck (*) - and only then chroot and attempt upgrades (no sense upgrading if the filesystem, yet alone HW is b0rked).

*) In case you have important, not backed-up files on the HDDs, copy them into a safe place as the first step!

seth · 2023-12-18 12:42:48

it tells me "Recovering jounal", along with other instructions on blocks, but it doesn't go on

If you cannot access the journal of the installed system, at least link a photo of your monitor (please don't embed it here)

If the Wild Penguin is correct, you do under no circumstances update anything or cause any other (writing) access to the drive, but check https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SMART (from the install iso or a specialized distro like grml) indeed.

Ride Garcher · 2023-12-18 18:31:33

Update.
I used fsck on the chroot of my system using linux installer.

Now when i boot the system it says

/Dev/sdc2: clean + something like "tot files, tot blocks"

But it doesn't startup

On top of that, i tried to "sudo pacman -Syu" and it says something like "no! Mirror problems"

Edit. I might want to reinstall Arch from scratch?

Last edited by Ride Garcher (2023-12-18 20:05:45)

seth · 2023-12-18 20:34:16

/Dev/sdc2: clean + something like "tot files, tot blocks"
On top of that, i tried to "sudo pacman -Syu" and it says something like "no! Mirror problems"

Most *certainly* not "something liky any of that" - please don't paraphrase, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855
If you want help, share the *actual* error message, if it's localized, export LC_ALL=C
If you don't know how to share it, you can

sudo pacman -Syu 2>&1 | tee /tmp/pacman.errors

and upload that file, in doubt by usb-walking it to a system w/ working internet.
Worst case solution: link a photo of the monitor and in any event explain the context where that happend.

I might want to reinstall Arch from scratch?

If there's any issue w/ the integrity of your drive, you can prepare for some severe data loss w/ massive write actions.
If this is just a misconfiguration, you want to learn how you fucked up so you can avoid that in the future.
"re-installation" has a high probability of "recreating the same mistakes, resulting in the same situation"

Ride Garcher · 2023-12-20 21:54:35

Sorry guys if I answer after a long time but work takes a lot of my time. I can't even turn on the pc that has this problem we are talking about now.
I will do it in the next few days. The plan is to chroot open the system and make copypaste of the logs somewhere so I can examine them (when I figure out how to do it. sorry but I haven't figured it out yet)

However, I came up with another possibility. During that little bit of use where I have been using this Arch system, I have often switched the kernel between Zen and Hardened to do some tests.
Is it possible that this was the cause of the problem?

Ps. Although I have little time I read your answers. Thank you for your help and excuse me for my lack of clarity.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2023-12-22 18:38:45

Ride Garcher wrote:

SDuring that little bit of use where I have been using this Arch system, I have often switched the kernel between Zen and Hardened to do some tests.
Is it possible that this was the cause of the problem?

I don't think so, no.

And don't worry about delays. Your thread, your time frame.

Ride Garcher · 2023-12-26 21:49:04

I solved the problem. I did chroot again because I had a suspicion that turned out to be true. Basically I had a problem with the network, which is why it was not updating pacman packages. Solved the problem I did "sudo pacman -Syu" and rebooted everything the problem was solved.
Thank you all for the help.
The only defeat is that I could not read the logs to figure out what was causing the problem

Arch Linux

#1 2023-12-17 23:18:12

"Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

#2 2023-12-18 07:27:34

Re: "Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

#3 2023-12-18 11:09:43

Re: "Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

#4 2023-12-18 12:42:48

Re: "Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

#5 2023-12-18 18:31:33

Re: "Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

#6 2023-12-18 20:34:16

Re: "Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

#7 2023-12-20 21:54:35

Re: "Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

#8 2023-12-22 18:38:45

Re: "Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

#9 2023-12-26 21:49:04

Re: "Recovering journal. Arch won't start [SOLVED]

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