NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

hopeful.jpg · 2025-02-26 16:24:49

[HELP] Arch Won’t Boot: Missing Kernel, Freezes at Login

I recently attempted to install DaVinci Resolve, but instead of using the AUR, I followed another method that required downgrading

glib2

. After rebooting, my system stopped working correctly.

At first, I got this error:

error: file `/boot/vmlinuz-linux-zen` not found.
error: you need to load the kernel first.

It seemed like my kernel was missing. I booted into a Live USB, chrooted, and ran:

pacman -Syu linux linux-zen linux-lts  
mkinitcpio -P  
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

After rebooting, I reached the login screen, but my system completely freezes as soon as I log in. I created a test user to check if it was a user config issue, but it also freezes after login, meaning it's likely a system-wide issue.

Additional Context:
✔ I know that downgrading core packages like

glib2

is highly discouraged and not recommended on Arch. However, I did it, and now I'm dealing with the consequences.
✔ I have confirmed that

pacman -Syu

ran correctly, and my system is fully up to date.
✔ I can switch to a different TTY when the system freezes.

What I Have Tried So Far:

Checked Bootloader & Kernel:
✔ Reinstalled

linux

,

linux-zen

,

linux-lts

✔ Rebuilt initramfs:

mkinitcpio -P

✔ Regenerated GRUB config:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Checked NVIDIA & Mesa:
✔ System has an NVIDIA GPU
✔ Installed drivers:

pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils nvidia-dkms mesa xf86-video-nouveau

✔ Blacklisted Nouveau:

echo -e "blacklist nouveau\noptions nouveau modeset=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-nouveau.conf  
sudo mkinitcpio -P

✔ Reinstalled NVIDIA drivers:

pacman -S nvidia nvidia-utils nvidia-settings nvidia-dkms  
mkinitcpio -P

Checked X/Wayland & Display Manager:
✔ Running SDDM with X backend
✔ Booted into TTY and ran:

ps aux | grep -E "Xorg|wayland"

→ Shows Xorg running

✔ Checked SDDM status:

sudo systemctl status sddm

→ Shows some failures

✔ Manually launching `LXPanel` worked, indicating SDDM might be failing.

Log Output:
Here’s what I see when checking the logs with

journalctl -b --no-pager | tail -50

:

Feb 26 20:00:01 serialbinary sddm[3014]: Running display stop script ("QList("/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop")")  
Feb 26 20:00:03 serialbinary sddm[3014]: sddm.service: Deactivated successfully.  
Feb 26 20:00:05 serialbinary sddm[3014]: Stopped Simple Desktop Display Manager.  
Feb 26 20:00:07 serialbinary sddm[3014]: Started Simple Desktop Display Manager.  
Feb 26 20:00:09 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Initializing...  
Feb 26 20:00:10 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Logind interface found  
Feb 26 20:00:12 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Loading theme configuration...  
Feb 26 20:00:13 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Adding new display: 0 on vt 2  
Feb 26 20:00:15 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Loading display configuration...  
Feb 26 20:00:17 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"  
Feb 26 20:00:18 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Display server starting...  
Feb 26 20:00:20 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Adding cookie to "/run/sddm/Xauth_MxTpPG"  
Feb 26 20:00:22 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Running "/usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 vt2 -auth /run/sddm/Xauth_MxTpPG -noreset -displayfd 17"  
Feb 26 20:00:24 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Setting default cursor  
Feb 26 20:00:26 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Socket server started.  
Feb 26 20:00:28 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Adding cookie to "/run/sddm/Xauth_MxTpPG"  
Feb 26 20:00:29 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Greeter starting...  
Feb 26 20:00:31 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Adding cookie to "/run/sddm/Xauth_MxTpPG"  
Feb 26 20:00:33 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Message received from greeter: Connect  
Feb 26 20:00:35 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Auth: "sddm-auth-helper --socket /tmp/sddm-auth9m1f67"  
Feb 26 20:00:37 serialbinary sddm-helper[978]: [PAM] Starting...  
Feb 26 20:00:39 serialbinary sddm-helper[978]: [PAM] Authenticating...  
Feb 26 20:00:40 serialbinary sddm-helper[978]: [PAM] Returning...  
Feb 26 20:00:42 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Auth: Authentication successful for user lydia(uid=1000) by lydia(uid=0)  
Feb 26 20:00:44 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Session started true

Current Issues & Questions:
❓ Why does the system freeze after login? Could it be related to the

glib2

downgrade or NVIDIA/Mesa issues?
❓ Could this be an issue with SDDM/Xorg? Should I try switching to a different display manager?
❓ Do I need to reinstall

glib2

and other dependencies? How do I make sure everything expecting the updated version is linked properly?
❓ What’s the best way to recover NVIDIA and Mesa functionality?

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Last edited by hopeful.jpg (2025-02-27 01:15:36)

V1del · 2025-02-26 16:56:34

Generally downgrading on Arch is highly discouraged and not reccommended. Assuming the pacman -Syu ran through correctly and your system being up to date this should ideally not be the issue anymore.

But there's lot of random guesswork here without the understanding to make proper assessments. Can you switch TTY when running into a freeze? If you can, post the link you get from

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

hopeful.jpg · 2025-02-27 01:05:02

serialbinary: journalctl -b --no-pager | tail -50

Feb 26 20:00:01 serialbinary sddm[3014]: Running display stop script ("QList("/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop")")  
Feb 26 20:00:03 serialbinary sddm[3014]: sddm.service: Deactivated successfully.  
Feb 26 20:00:05 serialbinary sddm[3014]: Stopped Simple Desktop Display Manager.  
Feb 26 20:00:07 serialbinary sddm[3014]: Started Simple Desktop Display Manager.  
Feb 26 20:00:09 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Initializing...  
Feb 26 20:00:10 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Logind interface found  
Feb 26 20:00:12 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Loading theme configuration...  
Feb 26 20:00:13 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Adding new display: 0 on vt 2  
Feb 26 20:00:15 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Loading display configuration...  
Feb 26 20:00:17 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"  
Feb 26 20:00:18 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Display server starting...  
Feb 26 20:00:20 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Adding cookie to "/run/sddm/Xauth_MxTpPG"  
Feb 26 20:00:22 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Running "/usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 vt2 -auth /run/sddm/Xauth_MxTpPG -noreset -displayfd 17"  
Feb 26 20:00:24 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Setting default cursor  
Feb 26 20:00:26 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Socket server started.  
Feb 26 20:00:28 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Adding cookie to "/run/sddm/Xauth_MxTpPG"  
Feb 26 20:00:29 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Greeter starting...  
Feb 26 20:00:31 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Adding cookie to "/run/sddm/Xauth_MxTpPG"  
Feb 26 20:00:33 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Message received from greeter: Connect  
Feb 26 20:00:35 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Auth: "sddm-auth-helper --socket /tmp/sddm-auth9m1f67"  
Feb 26 20:00:37 serialbinary sddm-helper[978]: [PAM] Starting...  
Feb 26 20:00:39 serialbinary sddm-helper[978]: [PAM] Authenticating...  
Feb 26 20:00:40 serialbinary sddm-helper[978]: [PAM] Returning...  
Feb 26 20:00:42 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Auth: Authentication successful for user lydia(uid=1000) by lydia(uid=0)  
Feb 26 20:00:44 serialbinary sddm[3201]: Session started true

Last edited by hopeful.jpg (2025-02-27 01:13:45)

seth · 2025-02-27 08:33:53

Where in V1del's post do you see the token "tail"?

Btw, on a wild guess you likely just forgot to mount the boot partition when chroot-fixing stuff?

Last edited by seth (2025-02-27 08:35:48)

hopeful.jpg · 2025-02-27 09:23:25

seth wrote:

Where in V1del's post do you see the token "tail"?
Btw, on a wild guess you likely just forgot to mount the boot partition when chroot-fixing stuff?

https://0x0.st/8m-D.txt

hopeful.jpg · 2025-02-27 09:24:09

V1del wrote:

Generally downgrading on Arch is highly discouraged and not reccommended. Assuming the pacman -Syu ran through correctly and your system being up to date this should ideally not be the issue anymore.
But there's lot of random guesswork here without the understanding to make proper assessments. Can you switch TTY when running into a freeze? If you can, post the link you get from
sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

https://0x0.st/8m-D.txt

Yes I can most certainly switch to TTY when freeze. I just can't go past login since it freezes when/at the point I enter the password.

Last edited by hopeful.jpg (2025-02-27 09:25:09)

Lone_Wolf · 2025-02-27 10:27:14

Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-linux-zen root=UUID=ea95503a-e148-42a6-8d20-efd7b58e6b67 rw i915 nvidia-drm.modset=1

You have a typo there, it should be nvidia-drm.modeset=1

Why is i915 present in that line ?

seth · 2025-02-27 13:12:30

Feb 27 09:50:35 serialbinary systemd-modules-load[359]: Failed to find module 'nvidia-drm'

But you're booting the latest zen kernel.

dkms status

hopeful.jpg · 2025-02-27 23:58:11

seth wrote:

Where in V1del's post do you see the token "tail"?
Btw, on a wild guess you likely just forgot to mount the boot partition when chroot-fixing stuff?

I use SDDM because it runs all zsh login shell scripts, like ~/.config/zsh/.zlogin, where I have a lot of logic set up. This includes initializing gpg directly from there instead of relying on a .desktop XDG file. As for dwm. It’s located in my /usr/local/bin (or possibly /usr/bin—I can’t recall), and I use a custom launcher, /usr/local/bin/dwmstart or /usr/bin/dwmstart. I also have a patched version of polybar that integrates with dwm using IPC. If SDDM fails to launch dwm, it might be because something needed for dwm-ipc or polybar got messed up—possibly related to the glib2 downgrade. Uninstalling and reinstalling SDDM should resolve this, as it will pull in the required packages and provide a fresh start. But it did not resolve it for me. Any other ideas?

Last edited by hopeful.jpg (2025-02-27 23:59:15)

hopeful.jpg · 2025-02-28 00:11:12

seth wrote:

Feb 27 09:50:35 serialbinary systemd-modules-load[359]: Failed to find module 'nvidia-drm'

But you're booting the latest zen kernel.

dkms status

dkms status

http://0x0.st/8mSW.txt

V1del · 2025-02-28 00:55:21

You'll need nvidia-dkms for the zen kernel.

Arch Linux

#1 2025-02-26 16:24:49

NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#2 2025-02-26 16:56:34

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#3 2025-02-27 01:05:02

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#4 2025-02-27 08:33:53

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#5 2025-02-27 09:23:25

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#6 2025-02-27 09:24:09

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#7 2025-02-27 10:27:14

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#8 2025-02-27 13:12:30

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#9 2025-02-27 23:58:11

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#10 2025-02-28 00:11:12

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

#11 2025-02-28 00:55:21

Re: NVIDIA/Mesa Issue, Arch Won’t Boot: Freezes at Login

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