System booting to CLI or black screen after update

[mxxm]

@louhy You are actually using SDDM, not LightDM

I have a similiar issue occuring after the last kernel update, which also broke my otherwise flawlessly working SDDM configuration. I hope you don't mind if I piggyback off your thread since this might be related.
My symptoms: The system freezes when trying to log out -> black screen, no blinking cursor. Logging in after boot animation works appr. 4 out of 5 times. The freeze is permanent, I mean i did wait 5 min more or less..then I just reset my Laptop via the power button. Nothing helps thus far, at least no keystroke known to me. Cant change to TTY as well. When attempting via Ctrl+Alt+Fx from a working session the system freezes immediately, sometimes without a black screen, but freezes nonetheless.

I highly suspect an issue with SDDM since the last upgrade, maybe a dependency thing? I dunno..Upon observing my apt history log I noticed that SDDM indeed was updated the day kernel version 6.1.0-18-amd64s rolled out, and it was after that I realized the issues regarding logging out and switching into TTY

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sddm-modified-init:amd64 (23.10.01, 24.02.01)

Is there a correlation? @louhy Can u check wether you had your SDDM updated, too? That could be an indicator, as to where the cause of this issue is

[txm0523]

@louhy I did an update yesterday and I had the same issue when I booted up the PC this morning. Only way I could get out of it was to do a hard restart. When PC restarted it went back into normal boot up and no error message appeared. I have been having issues with " sddmerror: unexpectedly disconnected from boot status daemon " for the past two months. This is driving me crazy. Don't know if there is an error in coding of the sddm file or init.d itself. Can't seem to find the corrective action for this problem. I filed a bug report with KDE but the response was that it's how the distro maintainers update the configuration. Nice excuse from KDE developers when it seems like it's a KDE PLasma problem. The only solution I can figure out is to change desktop environments, e.g. XFCE or Cinnamon. I prefer KDE but if it's going to be an ongoing problem, I would make the switch.

[louhy]

Yep, thanks. I feel like the issue is probably after the firmware level stuff so maybe I'll try that different kernel suggestion first, if nobody else shows up here with another idea. Edit: That was meant for siamhie - didn't notice I had a second page to read!

[louhy]

@mxxm Ok good to know, SDDM, I see it in the system info I posted now. No worries about crossing issues, I don't mind.

It does look like it updated SDDM on the 23rd when I had the issue if "sddm-modified-init" is what it sounds like.

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2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade steam-libs-i386:i386 1:1.0.0.78 1:1.0.0.79
2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade steam-libs-amd64:amd64 1:1.0.0.78 1:1.0.0.79
2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade sddm-modified-init:all 23.10.01 24.02.01
2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade nvidia-detect:amd64 525.147.05-4~deb12u1 525.147.05-7~deb12u1
2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade mx-user:amd64 23.11 24.2
2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade mx-tweak:amd64 24.01.01mx23 24.02.01mx23
2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade mx-system:all 24.02.01mx23 24.02.02mx23
2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade mx-snapshot:amd64 24.01.01 24.02.04
2024-02-23 22:33:46 upgrade mx-repo-list:all 24.1 24.2
2024-02-23 22:33:45 upgrade mx-remastercc:amd64 23.7 24.2
2024-02-23 22:33:45 upgrade mx-packageinstaller-pkglist:all 24.02.2mx23 24.02.4mx23
2024-02-23 22:33:45 upgrade lo-main-helper:all 24.02.2mx23 24.02.4mx23
2024-02-23 22:33:45 upgrade imagemagick:amd64 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6+deb12u1
2024-02-23 22:33:45 upgrade imagemagick-6.q16:amd64 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6+deb12u1
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade steam-launcher:all 1:1.0.0.78 1:1.0.0.79
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade libmagickwand-6.q16-6:amd64 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6+deb12u1
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade libmagickcore-6.q16-6:amd64 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6+deb12u1
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade imagemagick-6-common:all 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6 8:6.9.11.60+dfsg-1.6+deb12u1
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade firefox:amd64 122.0.1~mozillabinaries-1mx23+1 123.0~mozillabinaries-1mx23+1
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade dnsutils:all 1:9.18.19-1~deb12u1 1:9.18.24-1
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade bind9-libs:amd64 1:9.18.19-1~deb12u1 1:9.18.24-1
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade bind9-host:amd64 1:9.18.19-1~deb12u1 1:9.18.24-1
2024-02-23 22:33:44 upgrade bind9-dnsutils:amd64 1:9.18.19-1~deb12u1 1:9.18.24-1
2024-02-18 11:37:33 upgrade vivaldi-stable:amd64 6.5.3206.61-1 6.5.3206.63-1
2024-02-17 13:29:52 upgrade gitkraken:amd64 9.11.1 9.12.0

@txm0523 Also interesting... hmm.

Maybe we need to look for some more logs. But if this is something related to a recent update I would hope a fix is coming soon.

[mxxm]

Yessir, I eventually did it, i hope it is benefecial to you as well.

In these cases normally there are two options, either rollback the SDDM-init Package that was updated or ged rid of particular configuration files so that KDE re-generates them and overwrites irregularities while re-building the particular dot files after rebooting. I did remove ksmservicerc and while this did change SDDMs behavior it still froze when logging off. I kept the copy in the trashbin for future reference. What I did end up doing was installing a new SDDM Theme, which did not work properly. But after rebooting and changing it back to Breeze then rebooting again and with all the doublechecking and re-enabling and re-disabling my preferred session and autologin settings in between I actually succeeded in glueing SDDM together again. I stopped counting how often I rebooted my system, but it was worth it.

Somethin obviously got broken during the last SDDM update and it did mess up with the init proc, i just dont know what it was exactly. You may try to play with SDDM settings and themes, perhaps just changing the Breeze picture can even work..just be cautios and keep a copy of everything that you manually choose to delete. I know this is not the preferred way of doing things and merely a workaround. Hopefully the next update doesnt break my current SDDM setting but thats life i guess

As to why the recent update lets the display manager freeze, i cant tell you. Not everyone experienced that bug, so it might be some sort of setting that some have enabled which ultimately triggers that freeze

[louhy]

Well if it's some setting that I have specificlally that doesn't sound too good - this install is only a month or two old so it's not like I had a ton of time to change things from the MX KDE defaults. The main "weird" thing I have going on here display wise I guess is the triple monitor setup (an ultrawide configured to function as 3 monitors), but these days that's not too uncommon.

I believe I'm using X11. Maybe they just aren't paying attention to KDE 5 and X11 support. Maybe we should just switch to LightDM? I'm not sure I really care what display manager I start up with. I don't even know why these things are needed TBH.

[siamhie]

I believe I'm using X11. Maybe they just aren't paying attention to KDE 5 and X11 support. Maybe we should just switch to LightDM? I'm not sure I really care what display manager I start up with. I don't even know why these things are needed TBH.

You can find out by going to system > info center.
You can switch between the two from the login screen (bottom left corner)

X11

kde-x11.png

Wayland

kde-wayland.png

The main "weird" thing I have going on here display wise I guess is the triple monitor setup (an ultrawide configured to function as 3 monitors), but these days that's not too uncommon.

I'm curious as to how you do that?

[louhy]

Yep it's X11 (I saw an "x11" in the quick system info too).

I have the largest ultrawide that LG makes (49" or whatever it is). It has 1 DP and 2 HDMI inputs in the back. There's a built-in feature in the monitor config where you can tell it to split the screen into virtual monitors, and tell it which inputs should go where (also some other ultrawides too from what I've seen). The "downside" (worth it) is that you need to run three cables from the video card to the monitor.

Ultrawide would be almost useless without this feature, because anything fullscreen (games etc.) is going to have its UI seriously messed up otherwise.

[siamhie]

@louhy Is this the monitor? 49WQ95C-W
https://www.lg.com/us/monitors/lg-49wq9 ... de-monitor (1 DP and 2 HDMI input connections)


The XFX Speedster MERC 319 has 2 DP and 1 HDMI outputs. Where is the third cable coming from?

[louhy]

Pretty much, but my model number is 49WL95C not 49WQ95C. And I don't think I paid that much.

Not sure if I got it from Amazon or Newegg, Amazon is claiming ignorance when I search but it might be this one:

https://www.amazon.com/LG-49WL95C-W-49- ... B07PJQKLTW

My GPU has 3xDP and 1xHDMI. The second HDMI is a DP that gets converted. :)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H767WCX