Arch Linux

richardrosa

Member

Registered: 2026-04-12

Posts: 2

Weird issue after full update

Greetings All,

Recently I did a full update ('sudo pacman -Syu') for my Arch Linux system, and have run into a strange problem.

Years ago, I created a PERL script that runs during the boot process.
This script locates encrypted disks (including one that may contain /home) that MIGHT be present when the system is started.
If any of these disks are present, a prompt for the password is presented, and the disk is mounted.

This script has worked flawlessly with a number of distros and kernels.
It also worked with Arch UNTIL this update.

The script uses the utility 'systemd-ask-password' to request the password from the user.
After this update, this routine was issuing an 'invalid argument' message, and bypassing the password prompt.
However, if the script was executed from a terminal AFTER KDE user sign-in, no error message was issued, and the password prompt succeeded.

What 'systemd-ask-password' was complaining about turned out to be 'esc' characters (used for color/highlighting).
Removal of these characters eliminated the error message & failure.

Does any kind soul have an idea as to what has been added to or removed from this update that would cause this issue?
I would like to return this formatting to the password prompt.
My eyesight is not very good, and  NOT having highlight/color in a password prompt makes the message harder to see.
 
  Current version info:
   Plasma:6.8.0
   KDE Frameworks: 6.31.0
   QT Version:6.12.0
   Kernel: 7.3.11-arch1-1 (64-bit)
   
Hardware:
   Lenovo T430s
   Intel 4 core CPU
   Graphics:Intel HD 4000 + Nvidia
   
   
 
  Thanx.
 
  Richard Rosa

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 78,695

Re: Weird issue after full update

What 'systemd-ask-password' was complaining about turned out to be 'esc' characters (used for color/highlighting).
Removal of these characters eliminated the error message & failure.

Seeing the actual script might help - apparently the escape sequences bleed into the input?

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