System fails to boot into DE [Solved]

[Robbo]

Hello, I'm extremely new to Linux so I'm at a loss for next steps.

I have MX 21.2.1 64 bit ahs XFCE installed as a dual boot with Windows 11. I have been getting my system set up, making tweaks to the desktop and installing the software I wanted. Now when I attempt to boot the grub screen comes up and I can select between MX and Windows (Windows still boots fine), and when I select MX the splash screen comes up and the progress bar moves along, then the splash screen goes away but instead of the LightDM login screen I get a flashing cursor in the upper left corner of the screen. And everything seems to just hang there. I can hit F1 and the screen loads to a terminal, but I'm not sure what I should be looking for at this point, so I just shutdown it down with: sudo shutdown now.
Since the previous time it booted into the DE I have installed the following (as far as I can remember):
Microsoft font package (from the MX Package Installer)
Lutris (from the MX Package Installer)
Skype (via these instructions: https://daylifetips.com/install-skype-on-mx-linux/)

However, I did not realize that Lutris requires NVIDIA graphics card, which I do not have. When I attempted to run Lutris I got an error message (can't remember what, other than that it said it needed NVIDIA drivers, or something like that). Realizing I couldn't use Lutris, I uninstalled it with MX Package Installer.

While I can still boot into Windows and use it, I am noticing some hiccups on that system as well. Mainly it's around browser tabs, or the whole browser, crashing occasionally (both firefox and chrome). I also had an issue where some pictures I downloaded from my email (thunderbird) would not upload properly to Facebook (firefox) and then attempting to open them with the Photos app would crash the Photos app. After rebooting the system I could upload the pictures and open them in Photos with no problem.

Here is the hardware information I have:

HP Laptop 15-dw3017ca
Processor 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-1135G7 @ 2.40GHz 2.42 GHz
Installed RAM 8.00 GB (7.75 GB usable)
Graphics: Intel® Iris® Xᵉ Graphics
Hard Drive:
256 GB PCIe® NVMe™ M.2 SSD
1 TB 5400 rpm SATA HDD
WLAN: Intel® Wi-Fi 6 AX201 (2x2) and Bluetooth® 5 combo

I can find more info as needed, but I'm not sure what else is helpful at this point.

Thanks to any and all that can give me a hand or point me in the right direction.
Posting from within Windows.

[Arnox]

Lutris shouldn't need an Nvidia GPU at all. It sounds like there's video driver problems of some kind that's causing X not to start.

It almost sounds like your hard disk is having issues. Try running CrystalDiskInfo on Windows. If it shows all clear, and if there's nothing important at all on your MX installation, the fastest solution to the problem is very probably going to be to just reinstall MX.

[Robbo]

Lutris shouldn't need an Nvidia GPU at all. It sounds like there's video driver problems of some kind that's causing X not to start.

It almost sounds like your hard disk is having issues. Try running CrystalDiskInfo on Windows. If it shows all clear, and if there's nothing important at all on your MX installation, the fastest solution to the problem is very probably going to be to just reinstall MX.

Thanks for the suggestion! CrystalDiskInfo reports both hard drives are good (it gives a 95% rating for the SSD drive, but no percentage rating for the HDD drive). So, that's encouraging.

It took a lot of time to get all my settings the way I wanted them, but there's definitely no important files on the MX installation. So, a reinstall is definitely an option, and what I was considering unless someone had a better idea.

In case it matters, I just remembered that after the last programs were installed, and Lutris uninstalled, I also had an issue where I tried to watch videos on Youtube (firefox) and they would play for half a second or less and then buffer for awhile before giving a playback error message and suggesting I restart my device. And, yeah, when I went to reboot after that is when I couldn't get back into MX.

[Arnox]

Lutris shouldn't need an Nvidia GPU at all. It sounds like there's video driver problems of some kind that's causing X not to start.

It almost sounds like your hard disk is having issues. Try running CrystalDiskInfo on Windows. If it shows all clear, and if there's nothing important at all on your MX installation, the fastest solution to the problem is very probably going to be to just reinstall MX.

Thanks for the suggestion! CrystalDiskInfo reports both hard drives are good (it gives a 95% rating for the SSD drive, but no percentage rating for the HDD drive). So, that's encouraging.

It took a lot of time to get all my settings the way I wanted them, but there's definitely no important files on the MX installation. So, a reinstall is definitely an option, and what I was considering unless someone had a better idea.

In case it matters, I just remembered that after the last programs were installed, and Lutris uninstalled, I also had an issue where I tried to watch videos on Youtube (firefox) and they would play for half a second or less and then buffer for awhile before giving a playback error message and suggesting I restart my device. And, yeah, when I went to reboot after that is when I couldn't get back into MX.

Alright. Last thing I would suggest as a last ditch attempt is to do

Code: Select all

fsck.ext4 /dev/<your device here>

Usually the device is called sda1 or hda1 or something. Use the lsblk command if you're not sure which it is. If the scan reads as good, then just restart from an MX Linux LiveUSB and reinstall. MAKE DOUBLY SURE THERE IS NOTHING IMPORTANT ON THE DRIVE BEFORE YOU REINSTALL.

We could probably figure out what the exact issue is by going over all the system logs in /var/log/, but honestly, it's just not worth the time expenditure for your case. Just wipe it and start over is what I say.

[Huckleberry Finn]

At least you can do this no matter we find the culprit and repair or not:

Boot with a live usb (actually 'media' , it can even be any distro no matter new/old).

Then simply copy-paste your /home directory to somewhere else (preferably somewhere ext4 formatted to keep permissions/ownerships exactly as they are .. Meanwhile you can even directly "zip" it if you like.. Say: right-click on /home : "Create Archive" .. select destination.. save as Anyname.7z )

This way you'll feel at ease no matter what you do. Also you can put it back (overwrite) after a reinstall: all your customizations, desktop etc. will be back at once.

________________________

Till then, you can also: Ctrl+Alt+F1 then login manually (type username press Enter, then pw "blindly") ... issue

Code: Select all

apt-history

That will show last (actually all) changes, installed/removed/purged/upgraded ...

(While you're at it, after that Ctrl+Alt+F7 , if still not, issue: startx )


Also: On live session have a check (using the file manager) whether MX partitions got full.

[j2mcgreg]

Quick question: have you disabled secure boot?

[Robbo]

At least you can do this no matter we find the culprit and repair or not:

Boot with a live usb (actually 'media' , it can even be any distro no matter new/old).

Then simply copy-paste your /home directory to somewhere else (preferably somewhere ext4 formatted to keep permissions/ownerships exactly as they are .. Meanwhile you can even directly "zip" it if you like.. Say: right-click on /home : "Create Archive" .. select destination.. save as Anyname.7z )

This way you'll feel at ease no matter what you do. Also you can put it back (overwrite) after a reinstall: all your customizations, desktop etc. will be back at once.

________________________

Till then, you can also: Ctrl+Alt+F1 then login manually (type username press Enter, then pw "blindly") ... issue

Code: Select all

apt-history

That will show last (actually all) changes, installed/removed/purged/upgraded ...

(While you're at it, after that Ctrl+Alt+F7 , if still not, issue: startx )


Also: On live session have a check (using the file manager) whether MX partitions got full.

So, apt-history shows that I also removed libre office not long before the issue started, I used MX Package Installer for the uninstall.

Ctrl+Alt+F7 didn't do anything, but startx got me in!
I immediately got a message that I was running out of room in my boot folder and it suggested MX Cleanup. From there I clicked on Run Disk Usage Analyzer which shows that my root folder is nearly full (65 GB!). Further inspection shows that the culprit is 53 GB in my /var directory.

So, should I just do a clean install? My /home is on a separate partition, so I believe I can just preserve that and only wipe the / directory. Is there anything worth exploring/trying before the reinstall?

[Robbo]

Perhaps it makes a difference that I installed using btrfs... so far the assumption has been that I'm using the ext4 default

[Huckleberry Finn]

... the culprit is 53 GB in my /var directory. ...anything worth exploring/trying before the reinstall?

Just have a look what exactly it is. If it's the log files, probably it'll do that again (sometimes the system produces huge log files like crazy (when normally they're just bytes or KBs) , then it needs parameters or other workarounds (like logrotate) ).

[Robbo]

... the culprit is 53 GB in my /var directory. ...anything worth exploring/trying before the reinstall?

Just have a look what exactly it is. If it's the log files, probably it'll do that again (sometimes the system produces huge log files like crazy (when normally they're just bytes or KBs) , then it needs parameters or other workarounds (like logrotate) ).

It's both the syslog and kern.log files, both are just shy of 23 GB.

In both logs I've found one chunk of lines that keeps repeating (with only a change in the time and the number in the square brackets):

Jan 02 16:16:29 <computer> kernel: [52111.124723] sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl 0000:00:1f.3: Failed to setup widget PIPELINE.30.HDA.OUT
Jan 02 16:16:29 <computer> kernel: [52111.124724] sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl 0000:00:1f.3: error: failed widget list set up for pcm 0 dir 0
Jan 02 16:16:29 <computer> kernel: [52111.124726] sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl 0000:00:1f.3: ASoC: error at snd_soc_pcm_component_hw_params on 0000:00:1f.3: -19
Jan 02 16:16:29 <computer> kernel: [52111.124728] HDA Analog: ASoC: __soc_pcm_hw_params() failed (-19)
Jan 02 16:16:29 <computer> kernel: [52111.124735] HDA Analog: ASoC: dpcm_fe_dai_hw_params failed (-19)

And every so often the following line interrupts the above chunk:

Jan 02 16:16:29 <computer> pulseaudio[2888]: [alsa-sink-HDA Analog (*)] alsa-sink.c: Failed to set hardware parameters: No such device