KDE SDDM has issues sometimes with login Splash screen - dreaded blank login screen

[LinuxSpring1]

Recently I had a strange issue with the Login splash screen during boot. I have a splash theme defined in MX Boot Options utility. My laptop was in sleep mode and my battery had drained completely. So I plugged it into the power and tried to boot it up. Got the dreaded blank screen after the GRUB menu. Waited for a few minutes and then rebooted my laptop with SystemRescueCD. Ran a full FSCK on all the partitions. Checked the log files in the directory /var/log of MX Linux. Namely boot.log, dmesg, syslog, kern.log. Nothing out of ordinary stood there. Rebooted the laptop back into MX Linux. Got the Grub menu of the MX Linux. Selected the first option and it showed me the blank screen once again. Hmmm. This did not look good. CTRL+ALT +F[1-5] keys were not working, so I could not get into a tty console and try to troubleshoot. CTRL+ALT+DEL key combination was also not working. So physically powered down the laptop and then rebooted again.

This time on the GRUB menu, I selected the option, "e". In the boot menu removed the splash option and put nosplash instead of it. Pressed the F10 key, waited for 30 seconds and huzza the KDE Login screen appeared. Was dreading a reinstall. Logged in, did some sanity checks. Checked the output of the command cat /proc/cmdline and it showed me that yes I have booted with nosplash option. Rebooted and this time allowed the boot to go through. No changing of the GRUB entries. Nothing. And it booted fine. It was a great sigh of relief.

So my questions are as follows
1) Why does the Splash screen/theme sometimes cause the login screen to fail in KDE. I have checked in the forums and there have been some instances of this reported earlier too.
2) Is there a mechanism via which this issue can be traced via logs? Either SDDM logs of boot logs or dmesg or some other logs? If yes then please share the details?

Hats off to MX Boot Options utility. Great piece of software.

I am using MX Linux 23 with KDE 5, and SDDM as the display manager. Wayland is being used.

Code: Select all

System:
  Kernel: vmlinuz-6.1.0-31-amd64 [6.1.128-1] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/vmlinuz-6.1.0-31-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash 
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 5.27.5 wm: kwin_wayland vt: 8 dm: SDDM Distro: MX-23.5_KDE_x64 Libretto
    January 21 2024 base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
   Type: Laptop System: XXXX product: XXXXX v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
    Chassis: type: 10 serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: XXXX model: XXXXX serial: <superuser required> UEFI: XXXXXXX
    date: 05/24/2023
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 34.0 Wh (100.0%) condition: 34.0/36.2 Wh (31.0%) volts: 12.7 min: 11.4
    model: Notebook BAT type: Li-ion serial: <filter> status: full
CPU:
  Info: model: 11th Gen Intel Core i3-1115G4 bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Tiger Lake gen: core 11
    level: v4 note: check built: 2020 process: Intel 10nm family: 6 model-id: 0x8C (140) stepping: 2
    microcode: 0x36
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 2 tpc: 2 threads: 4 smt: enabled cache: L1: 160 KiB
    desc: d-2x48 KiB; i-2x32 KiB L2: 2.5 MiB desc: 2x1.2 MiB L3: 6 MiB desc: 1x6 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1126 high: 1273 min/max: 400/4100 scaling: driver: intel_pstate
    governor: powersave cores: 1: 1075 2: 1063 3: 1094 4: 1273 bogomips: 23961
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling mitigation: Microcode
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Enhanced / Automatic IBRS; IBPB: conditional; RSB filling;
    PBRSB-eIBRS: SW sequence; BHI: SW loop, KVM: SW loop
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP GT2 [UHD Graphics G4] vendor: XXXX driver: i915 v: kernel
    arch: Gen-12.1 process: Intel 10nm built: 2020-21 ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3,
    DP-4, HDMI-A-1 bus-ID: XXXX chip-ID: XXXX class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: XXXXX USB2.0 Camera type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus-ID: XXXX chip-ID: XXXX
    class-ID: XXXX serial: <filter>
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.7 with: Xwayland v: 22.1.9 compositor: kwin_wayland
    driver: X: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 res: 1920x1080 size: N/A modes: N/A
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 Mesa 23.1.2-1~mx23ahs renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics (TGL GT2)
    direct-render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Tiger Lake-LP Smart Sound Audio vendor: XXXX driver: snd_hda_intel
    bus-ID: XXXX v: kernel alternate: snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl chip-ID: XXXX bus-ID: XXXX
    class-ID: 0300 chip-ID: XXXX class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: C-Media USB Advanced Audio Device type: USB driver: hid-generic,snd-usb-audio,usbhid
  API: ALSA v: k6.1.0-21-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.0 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX201 driver: XXXX v: kernel modules: wl bus-ID: XXXX
    chip-ID: XXXX class-ID: XXXX
  IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel Ethernet I219-V driver: XXXX v: kernel port: N/A bus-ID: XXXX
    chip-ID: XXXX class-ID: XXXX
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel Bluetooth 9460/9560 Jefferson Peak (JfP) type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8
    bus-ID: XXXX chip-ID: XXXX class-ID: XXXX
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: N/A rfk-block: hardware: no
    software: yes address: <filter>
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:4 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch sniff link-mode: peripheral accept
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 709.83 GiB used: 9.37 GiB (1.3%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/XXXX maj-min: 259:0 vendor: XXXX model: XXXX size: XXXX GiB
    block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 type: SSD serial: <filter>
    rev: XXXX temp: 34.9 C scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: XXXX model: XXXX size: XXXX GiB
    block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: XXXX
    scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 10 GiB GiB size: 9.75 GiB GiB (97.45%) used: 277.9 MiB (2.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
    maj-min: 8:2
  ID-2: /usr raw-size: 20 GiB size: 19.52 GiB (97.59%) used: 6.67 GiB (34.2%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda2 maj-min: 8:4
  ID-3: /var raw-size: 5 GiB size: 4.84 GiB (96.79%) used: 2.34 GiB (48.4%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda3 maj-min: 8:5
  ID-4: /home raw-size: 100 GiB size: 97.87 GiB (97.87%) used: 732 MiB (0.7%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda4 maj-min: 8:8
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default)
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 20 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/sda5
    maj-min: 8:9
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 39.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2447 libs: 1333 tools: apt,apt-get,aptitude,nala,synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb https://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
    2: deb https://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bookworm ahs
Info:
  Processes: 200 Uptime: 21m wakeups: 2 Memory: 15.4 GiB used: 2.8 GiB (18.1%) Init: SysVinit
  v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical tool: systemctl Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 alt: 12
  Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.26
Boot Mode: UEFI

[LinuxSpring1]

Any suggestions or pointers on this?

1) Why does the Splash screen/theme sometimes cause the login screen to fail in KDE. I have checked in the forums and there have been some instances of this reported earlier too.
2) Is there a mechanism via which this issue can be traced via logs? Either SDDM logs of boot logs or dmesg or some other logs? If yes then please share the details?

[Eadwine Rose]

We have told you many times before to provide an unedited QSI, and to stop the XXXing out.

I have issued you an official warning.

Please provide the full QSI, NOT edited.

[siamhie]

Recently I had a strange issue with the Login splash screen during boot. I have a splash theme defined in MX Boot Options utility. My laptop was in sleep mode and my battery had drained completely. So I plugged it into the power and tried to boot it up. Got the dreaded blank screen after the GRUB menu.

If I drain my phones battery completely, it won't turn on until it reaches a minimum of 5% battery.

Waited for a few minutes and then rebooted my laptop with SystemRescueCD. Ran a full FSCK on all the partitions. Checked the log files in the directory /var/log of MX Linux. Namely boot.log, dmesg, syslog, kern.log. Nothing out of ordinary stood there. Rebooted the laptop back into MX Linux. Got the Grub menu of the MX Linux. Selected the first option and it showed me the blank screen once again. Hmmm. This did not look good. CTRL+ALT +F[1-5] keys were not working, so I could not get into a tty console and try to troubleshoot. CTRL+ALT+DEL key combination was also not working. So physically powered down the laptop and then rebooted again.

This time on the GRUB menu, I selected the option, "e". In the boot menu removed the splash option and put nosplash instead of it. Pressed the F10 key, waited for 30 seconds and huzza the KDE Login screen appeared. Was dreading a reinstall. Logged in, did some sanity checks. Checked the output of the command cat /proc/cmdline and it showed me that yes I have booted with nosplash option. Rebooted and this time allowed the boot to go through. No changing of the GRUB entries. Nothing. And it booted fine. It was a great sigh of relief.

Let the laptop charge up a bit before you dive into troubleshooting.

So my questions are as follows
1) Why does the Splash screen/theme sometimes cause the login screen to fail in KDE. I have checked in the forums and there have been some instances of this reported earlier too.
2) Is there a mechanism via which this issue can be traced via logs? Either SDDM logs of boot logs or dmesg or some other logs? If yes then please share the details?

Can you replicate this issue using the x11 display server?
or
Can you replicate this issue booting to system-d?

[j2mcgreg]

@LinuxSpring1
Either post your complete, unedited QSI or be prepared to accept a lot of guesswork in the responses (if any) you receive.

[Eadwine Rose]

@j2mcgreg He has already been issued a warning.

[j2mcgreg]

@j2mcgreg He has already been issued a warning.

My response isn't meant as a warning per se. It's just a statement of reality. Any question posted any place where the knowable facts aren't available, must be responded to in a rhetorical manner.