Arch Linux

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2018-09-30

Posts: 259

[SOLVED] Unable to login

Hey friends, bit of an odd one here.

When I boot, once SDDM starts, the screen goes completely black with no cursor or anything and I'm unable to get to a tty with ctrl-alt-f#

I disabled SDDM and Plymouth from the kernel command line and was able to boot to a login prompt as expected. However. now each time I try to login, it says "System is booting up. Unprivileged users are not permitted to log in yet. Please come back later. For technical details, see pam_nologin(8)."

Thanks for the help.

Edit - solution was to boot into multi-user.target and run a full system upgrade

Last edited by cloverskull (2025-09-19 16:50:40)

twelveeighty

Member

Registered: 2011-09-04

Posts: 1,383

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

Log into the TTY as root and check your journal for errors. In doubt, post your journal from the last startup (-b -1) here. You might want to get a mod to move your post to Newbie Corner (click Report on your first post and ask a mod).

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 69,074

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

I disabled SDDM and Plymouth from the kernel command line

How exactly? Try booting only the multi-user.target (2nd link below), but not the rescue.target.

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cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,722

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

"black screen" - is an nvidia gpu involved?

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2018-09-30

Posts: 259

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

Log into the TTY as root and check your journal for errors. In doubt, post your journal from the last startup (-b -1) here. You might want to get a mod to move your post to Newbie Corner (click Report on your first post and ask a mod).

I wasn't able to login as root as the password is unset. But I will check the journal shortly...

How exactly? Try booting only the multi-user.target (2nd link below), but not the rescue.target.

I used

systemd.unit=getty.target

However, your suggestion to boot into the multi-user.target did get me able to login. What I'm doing now is a full upgrade (it's been a couple weeks) to see if maybe I had an issue that's already been fixed. I'm going to see if it "just works" after a reboot.

"black screen" - is an nvidia gpu involved?

There is an nvidia gpu, but I'm using my intel GPU for display output and the nvidia gpu is relegated to specific tasks (mostly AI and some gaming as long as my company doesn't notice).

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 69,074

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

If it does not just work, get us the journal of such boot (do not reboot w/ the power button, frenetically pressing ctrl+alt+del will likely do)
Also the xorg log might be interesting.

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cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2018-09-30

Posts: 259

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

While I'm waiting for the full upgrade to happen, here's my previous journalctl: https://termbin.com/pjxu

Edit - this line seems suspicious

Sep 19 08:42:50 archbox dbus-broker-launch[1472]: Activation request for 'org.freedesktop.home1' failed: The systemd unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service' could not be found.

Last edited by cloverskull (2025-09-19 16:10:58)

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 69,074

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

No, homed is just noise.

Sep 19 08:42:27 archlinux kernel: pci 0000:01:00.0: [10de:28a0] type 00 class 0x030200 PCIe Endpoint
Sep 19 08:42:51 archbox sddm-helper-start-wayland[1699]: "MESA: warning: Driver does not support the 0x28a0 PCI ID.\n"

That's your nvidia chip…

Sep 19 08:42:46 archbox kernel: nvidia-modeset: Loading NVIDIA UNIX Open Kernel Mode Setting Driver for x86_64  580.76.05  Release Build  (root@archbox)  
Sep 19 08:42:46 archbox kernel: [drm] [nvidia-drm] [GPU ID 0x00000100] Loading driver
Sep 19 08:42:49 archbox kernel: [drm] Initialized nvidia-drm 0.0.0 for 0000:01:00.0 on minor 2
Sep 19 08:42:49 archbox kernel: nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] No compatible format found
Sep 19 08:42:49 archbox kernel: nvidia 0000:01:00.0: [drm] Cannot find any crtc or sizes

nvidia-open is currently NOT suggested for Ada chips, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA
Still see whether you can start sddm after logging into the multi-user.target, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php … 6#p2259856

Did you only recently switch to sddm/wayland?

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How to upload text · How to boot w/o GUI · Disable Windows Fast-Start! · Fix your xinitrc

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,084

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

nvidia-open is currently NOT suggested for Ada chips, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/NVIDIA

It most certainly is, everything after Turing.

Edit: First thing, as always, UPDATE. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=130309

Last edited by Scimmia (2025-09-19 16:29:21)

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2018-09-30

Posts: 259

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

Edit - disregard my last.

@Seth - I've been running SDDM/Plasma/Wayland for well over a year and this just started today.

Last edited by cloverskull (2025-09-19 16:48:48)

cloverskull

Member

Registered: 2018-09-30

Posts: 259

Re: [SOLVED] Unable to login

And finally, seems like a full system upgrade was in order. Thanks guys. Looks like it was PEBCAK after all.