Arch Linux

jebez

Member

Registered: 2025-01-15

Posts: 49

[SOLVED]Remove wtmp btmp lastlog then reboot: these 3 files reappeared

Hibernate doesn't work: it acts like reboot, if I leave some open apps, hibernate then resume, empty desktop.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Power_ … nsistently doesn't help me.

Remove /var/log/wtmp /var/log/btmp /var/log/lastlog then reboot: these 3 files reappeared, although

man last

"The files wtmp and btmp might not be found. The system only logs information in these files if they are present.".
Not this bug on Debian unstable.

E.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqZZ2hYD9dQ downloaded via yt-dlp (giving a .webm file) works on mpv & Dragon Player but not on VLC: sound but black screen.
But it works on Debian live stable KDE Wayland https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.ph … 24#p547891.

Last edited by jebez (2025-01-19 11:22:00)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,841

Re: [SOLVED]Remove wtmp btmp lastlog then reboot: these 3 files reappeared

Please don't create omnibus threads, it makes troubleshooting harder and dilutes the help anyone can give on any specific topic.

Make one topic per thread, provide details such  as GPU and installed HWA methods and outputs of relevant commands that would give this information for the VLC issues for example (e.g. I just tested this, video works absolutely fine here), and more details/journal logs for hibernate failures (there have been quite a few issues with this in both the 6.12 kernels and current nvidia drivers, so might be somewhat par for the course right now, but we'd need more details on the actual behaviour and whether things are confgured correctly.)

The /var/log/ files behaviour is the easiest to explain. They get created by systemd via the tmpfiles mechanism that's described in /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/var.conf if you wan't to override that you could mask it with config in /etc/tmpfiles,d and comment/remove the entries for wtmp/btmp

Generally note that debian and Arch follow very different philosophies and it's very likely that debian patches software in order to retain an "unchanging" illusion while Arch ships what upstream provides unless absolutely necessary to deviate. Trying to directly compare the two will give you lots of differences, if you want Arch to behave like debian, you're probably better off sticking to debian.

Last edited by V1del (2025-01-19 10:41:11)

jebez

Member

Registered: 2025-01-15

Posts: 49

Re: [SOLVED]Remove wtmp btmp lastlog then reboot: these 3 files reappeared

In /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/var.conf remove

[d /var/log 0755 - - -
f /var/log/wtmp 0664 root utmp -
f /var/log/btmp 0660 root utmp -
f /var/log/lastlog 0664 root utmp -

works! Thanks.

HWA ?

Where are the details/journal logs for hibernate failures?

I'll create the 2 bugs topics.

Last edited by jebez (2025-01-19 11:09:59)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 23,841

Re: [SOLVED]Remove wtmp btmp lastlog then reboot: these 3 files reappeared

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Hardwa … celeration

Note that changing that file directly will likely make it get overwritten on the next update of the systemd package. you should create a copy with the same name under /etc/tmpfiles.d/var.conf so that your config takes precedence

Please change the title in the first post to make this thread focused on the wtmp/btmp/lastlog question and mark it as [SOLVED]