Blank screen after systemd-boot

azry3l · January 5, 2024, 1:45am

I have EndeavourOS installed on a laptop that hasn’t been turned on/updated in a few months.

I did yay to update the system. Everything worked fine and prompted me to reboot. I did and now after I get to systemd-boot and boot using the latest kernel, it’s a blank screen. Usually I’ll be greeted with the Welcome to Endeavour OS followed by a large amount of text that will then boot into the system so that I can log in. However, nothing comes up.

I did arch-chroot from a live usb to try and downgrade linux and linux-headers back to the previous versions I was using thinking this was the issue, but it didn’t seem to do anything. I updated all of the packages again just to make sure, but it says there’s nothing to do. I can’t update any AUR packages though. It gives me an error system has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate. Failed to connect to bus: Host is down

I even did a reinstall-kernels just to be on the safe side in case it was a systemd issue, but nothing helped. I’m using a laptop that only has intel integrated graphics, so it’s not an nvidia issue.

It’s my fault really for not keeping things up to date, but it’s not a huge issue. I originally installed Endeavour on this laptop more as a sandbox to familiarize myself with the OS. I can quickly retrieve my home folder using a live iso if needed, but I want to see if I can fix it first before having to reinstall.

Any help would be appreciated. Sorry, I would also consider myself a noob when it comes to arch-based systems.

dalto · January 5, 2024, 2:03am

Can you boot off the live ISO, arch-chroot in and provide some information.

pacman -Q | grep -i -E "xf86|dracut|mkinitcpio|mesa"
inxi -Fxxxz
cat /etc/kernel/cmdline

Instructions on how to arch-chroot are here.

Be sure to read the whole article before starting as there is more than one set of instructions and you need to choose the correct one.

azry3l · January 5, 2024, 2:35am

Here is what I get:

kernel-install-for-dracut 1.10.1-1
libxxf86vm 1.1.5-1
mesa 1:23.3.2-2
mesa-utils 9.0.0-3
xf86-input-libinput 1.4.0-1

12System:
12Kernel 6.6.1-arch1-1 12arch x86_64 12bits 64 12compiler gcc 12v 13.2.1 12clocksource tsc 12Desktop KDE Plasma
12v ERR-101 12tk Qt 12v 5.15.11 12wm kwin_x11 12dm startx 12Distro EndeavourOS 12base Arch Linux
12Machine:
12Type Laptop 12System Dell 12product Latitude E5450 12v N/A 12serial 12Chassis 12type 9
12serial
12Mobo Dell 12model 0DCPV1 12v A01 12serial 12UEFI Dell 12v A13 12date 05/17/2016
12Battery:
12ID-1 BAT0 12charge 39.2 Wh (100.0%) 12condition 39.2/53.8 Wh (72.9%) 12volts 8.3 12min 7.6
12model SMP DELL WYJC253 12type Li-ion 12serial 12status full
12CPU:
12Info dual core 12model Intel Core i5-5300U 12bits 64 12type MT MCP 12smt enabled 12arch Broadwell 12rev 4
12cache 12L1 128 KiB 12L2 512 KiB 12L3 3 MiB
12Speed (MHz) 12avg 600 12high 900 12min/max 500/2900 12volts 1.0 V 12ext-clock 100 MHz 12cores 121 500 122 500
123 500 124 900 12bogomips 18365
12Flags avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
12Graphics:
12Device-1 Intel HD Graphics 5500 12vendor Dell 12driver i915 12v kernel 12arch Gen-8 12ports 12active eDP-1
12empty DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2 12bus-ID 00:02.0 12chip-ID 8086:1616 12class-ID 0300
12Device-2 Microdia Integrated_Webcam_HD 12driver uvcvideo 12type USB 12rev 2.0 12speed 480 Mb/s 12lanes 1
12bus-ID 1-1.6:4 12chip-ID 0c45:6709 12class-ID 0e02
12Display 12server X.org 12v 1.21.1.10 12compositor kwin_x11 12driver 12X 12loaded intel 12unloaded modesetting
12alternate fbdev,vesa 12dri i965 12gpu i915 12display-ID :0
12Monitor-1 eDP-1 12model Samsung 0x544b 12res 1600x900 12dpi 132 12size 309x174mm (12.17x6.85")
12diag 355mm (14") 12modes 1600x900
12API EGL 12v 1.5 12hw 12drv intel iris 12platforms 12device 0 12drv iris 12device 1 12drv swrast 12surfaceless
12drv iris 12inactive gbm,wayland,x11
12API OpenGL 12v 4.6 12compat-v 4.5 12vendor mesa 12v 23.3.2-arch1.2 12note incomplete (EGL sourced)
12renderer Mesa Intel HD Graphics 5500 (BDW GT2), llvmpipe (LLVM 16.0.6 256 bits)
12API Vulkan 12Message No Vulkan data available.
12Audio:
12Device-1 Intel Broadwell-U Audio 12vendor Dell 12driver snd_hda_intel 12v kernel 12bus-ID 00:03.0
12chip-ID 8086:160c 12class-ID 0403
12Device-2 Intel Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio 12vendor Dell 12driver snd_hda_intel 12v kernel
12bus-ID 00:1b.0 12chip-ID 8086:9ca0 12class-ID 0403
12API ALSA 12v k6.6.1-arch1-1 12status kernel-api
12Server-1 PipeWire 12v 1.0.0 12status n/a (root, process) 12with 121 pipewire-pulse 12status active
122 wireplumber 12status active 123 pipewire-alsa 12type plugin 124 pw-jack 12type plugin
12Network:
12Device-1 Intel Ethernet I218-LM 12vendor Dell 12driver e1000e 12v kernel 12port f080 12bus-ID 00:19.0
12chip-ID 8086:15a2 12class-ID 0200
12IF eno1 12state down 12mac
12Device-2 Intel Wireless 7265 12driver iwlwifi 12v kernel 12pcie 12speed 2.5 GT/s 12lanes 1 12bus-ID 02:00.0
12chip-ID 8086:095a 12class-ID 0280
12IF wlan0 12state up 12mac
12Bluetooth:
12Device-1 Intel Bluetooth wireless interface 12driver btusb 12v 0.8 12type USB 12rev 2.0 12speed 12 Mb/s
12lanes 1 12bus-ID 1-1.3:3 12chip-ID 8087:0a2a 12class-ID e001
12Report btmgmt 12ID hci0 12rfk-id 2 12state up 12address 12bt-v 4.2 12lmp-v 8 12class-ID 7c010c
12RAID:
12Hardware-1 Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] 12driver ahci 12v 3.0 12port f060
12bus-ID 00:1f.2 12chip-ID 8086:282a 12rev N/A 12class-ID 0104
12Drives:
12Local Storage 12total 1.02 TiB 12used 78.6 GiB (7.5%)
12ID-1 /dev/sda 12vendor Crucial 12model CT1000MX500SSD1 12size 931.51 GiB 12speed 6.0 Gb/s 12tech SSD
12serial 12fw-rev 045
12ID-2 /dev/sdb 12vendor Kingston 12model DataTraveler 3.0 12size 115.5 GiB 12type USB 12rev 3.1 12spd 5 Gb/s
12lanes 1 12tech N/A 12serial 12fw-rev PMAP
12Partition:
12ID-1 / 12size 906.19 GiB 12used 78.51 GiB (8.7%) 12fs ext4 12dev /dev/sda2
12Swap:
12Alert No swap data was found.
12Sensors:
12System Temperatures 12cpu 47.0 C 12mobo 36.0 C 12sodimm SODIMM C
12Fan Speeds (rpm) 12cpu 0
12Info:
12Processes 204 12Uptime 3m 12wakeups 0 12Memory 12total 16 GiB 12available 15.49 GiB 12used 2.1 GiB (13.6%)
12igpu 32 MiB 12Init systemd 12v 255 12default graphical 12Compilers 12gcc 13.2.1 12clang 16.0.6 12Packages 1238
12pm pacman 12pkgs 1216 12pm flatpak 12pkgs 22 12Client Unknown Client: systemd 12inxi 3.3.31

nvme_load=YES rw root=UUID=5d359f0a-d0ec-407d-91cb-3ce1c87637d1 resume=UUID=d191976d-e6db-4e4c-937e-6ff7da4806

dalto · January 5, 2024, 2:47am

Are you sure this is the full output from the first command? There seems to be some things missing.

azry3l · January 5, 2024, 2:50am

Sorry, I missed the first line when I copied originally. Here is the full output:

dracut 059-4
kernel-install-for-dracut 1.10.1-1
libxxf86vm 1.1.5-1
mesa 1:23.3.2-2
mesa-utils 9.0.0-3
xf86-input-libinput 1.4.0-1

dalto · January 5, 2024, 2:52am

That all looks normal. Can you reinstall or upgrade your kernels and share the full output from that process?

azry3l · January 5, 2024, 2:59am

reinstall-kernels provides me the following:

Installing kernel 6.6.9-arch1-1
dracut: Executing: /usr/bin/dracut --no-hostonly --force /efi/79cb6dd2b9ff4e659be288e0250dc907/6.6.9-arch1-1/initrd-fallback 6.6.9-arch1-1
dracut: dracut module ‘dash’ will not be installed, because command ‘dash’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘mksh’ will not be installed, because command ‘mksh’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘systemd-pcrphase’ will not be installed, because command ‘/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-pcrphase’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘busybox’ will not be installed, because command ‘busybox’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘dbus-broker’ will not be installed, because command ‘dbus-broker’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘rngd’ will not be installed, because command ‘rngd’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmand’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmanctl’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmand-wait-online’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘network-wicked’ will not be installed, because command ‘wicked’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘dmraid’ will not be installed, because command ‘kpartx’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘multipath’ will not be installed, because command ‘multipath’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘tpm2-tss’ will not be installed, because command ‘tpm2’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘cifs’ depends on ‘network’, which can’t be installed
dracut: dracut module ‘fcoe’ will not be installed, because command ‘dcbtool’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘fcoe’ will not be installed, because command ‘fipvlan’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘fcoe’ will not be installed, because command ‘lldpad’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘fcoe’ will not be installed, because command ‘fcoemon’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘fcoe’ will not be installed, because command ‘fcoeadm’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘fcoe-uefi’ will not be installed, because command ‘dcbtool’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘fcoe-uefi’ will not be installed, because command ‘fipvlan’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘fcoe-uefi’ will not be installed, because command ‘lldpad’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsi-iname’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsiadm’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsid’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘nbd’ will not be installed, because command ‘nbd-client’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘nfs’ depends on ‘network’, which can’t be installed
dracut: dracut module ‘nvmf’ will not be installed, because command ‘nvme’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘biosdevname’ will not be installed, because command ‘biosdevname’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘memstrack’ will not be installed, because command ‘memstrack’ could not be found!
dracut: memstrack is not available
dracut: If you need to use rd.memdebug>=4, please install memstrack and procps-ng
dracut: dracut module ‘squash’ will not be installed, because command ‘mksquashfs’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘squash’ will not be installed, because command ‘unsquashfs’ could not be found!
dracut: *** Including module: systemd ***
dracut: *** Including module: systemd-initrd ***
dracut: *** Including module: modsign ***
dracut: *** Including module: i18n ***
dracut: *** Including module: btrfs ***
dracut: *** Including module: crypt ***
dracut: *** Including module: dm ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 64-device-mapper.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 60-persistent-storage-dm.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 55-dm.rules
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-modules ***
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-modules-extra ***
dracut: *** Including module: lvm ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 64-device-mapper.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 56-lvm.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 60-persistent-storage-lvm.rules
dracut: *** Including module: mdraid ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 64-md-raid.rules
dracut: *** Including module: nvdimm ***
dracut: *** Including module: qemu ***
dracut: *** Including module: qemu-net ***
dracut: *** Including module: lunmask ***
dracut: *** Including module: resume ***
dracut: *** Including module: rootfs-block ***
dracut: *** Including module: terminfo ***
dracut: *** Including module: udev-rules ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 40-redhat.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 50-firmware.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 50-udev.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 91-permissions.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 80-drivers-modprobe.rules
dracut: *** Including module: virtiofs ***
dracut: *** Including module: dracut-systemd ***
dracut: *** Including module: usrmount ***
dracut: *** Including module: base ***
dracut: *** Including module: fs-lib ***
dracut: *** Including module: shutdown ***
dracut: *** Including modules done ***
dracut: *** Installing kernel module dependencies ***
dracut: *** Installing kernel module dependencies done ***
dracut: *** Resolving executable dependencies ***
dracut: *** Resolving executable dependencies done ***
dracut: *** Hardlinking files ***
dracut: Mode: real
dracut: Method: sha256
dracut: Files: 2015
dracut: Linked: 8 files
dracut: Compared: 0 xattrs
dracut: Compared: 453 files
dracut: Saved: 1.42 MiB
dracut: Duration: 0.026580 seconds
dracut: *** Hardlinking files done ***
dracut: *** Generating early-microcode cpio image ***
dracut: *** Constructing AuthenticAMD.bin ***
dracut: *** Using microcode found in ‘/boot/intel-ucode.img’ ***
dracut: *** Store current command line parameters ***
dracut: *** Stripping files ***
dracut: *** Stripping files done ***
dracut: *** Creating image file ‘/efi/79cb6dd2b9ff4e659be288e0250dc907/6.6.9-arch1-1/initrd-fallback’ ***
dracut: *** Creating initramfs image file ‘/efi/79cb6dd2b9ff4e659be288e0250dc907/6.6.9-arch1-1/initrd-fallback’ done ***
dracut: Executing: /usr/bin/dracut --hostonly --no-hostonly-cmdline -f /efi/79cb6dd2b9ff4e659be288e0250dc907/6.6.9-arch1-1/initrd 6.6.9-arch1-1
dracut: dracut module ‘dash’ will not be installed, because command ‘dash’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘mksh’ will not be installed, because command ‘mksh’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘systemd-pcrphase’ will not be installed, because command ‘/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-pcrphase’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘busybox’ will not be installed, because command ‘busybox’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘dbus-broker’ will not be installed, because command ‘dbus-broker’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘rngd’ will not be installed, because command ‘rngd’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmand’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmanctl’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmand-wait-online’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘network-wicked’ will not be installed, because command ‘wicked’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘dmraid’ will not be installed, because command ‘kpartx’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘tpm2-tss’ will not be installed, because command ‘tpm2’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsi-iname’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsiadm’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsid’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘nvmf’ will not be installed, because command ‘nvme’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘biosdevname’ will not be installed, because command ‘biosdevname’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘memstrack’ will not be installed, because command ‘memstrack’ could not be found!
dracut: memstrack is not available
dracut: If you need to use rd.memdebug>=4, please install memstrack and procps-ng
dracut: dracut module ‘squash’ will not be installed, because command ‘mksquashfs’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘squash’ will not be installed, because command ‘unsquashfs’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘dash’ will not be installed, because command ‘dash’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘mksh’ will not be installed, because command ‘mksh’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘systemd-pcrphase’ will not be installed, because command ‘/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-pcrphase’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘busybox’ will not be installed, because command ‘busybox’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘dbus-broker’ will not be installed, because command ‘dbus-broker’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘rngd’ will not be installed, because command ‘rngd’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmand’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmanctl’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘connman’ will not be installed, because command ‘connmand-wait-online’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘network-wicked’ will not be installed, because command ‘wicked’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘dmraid’ will not be installed, because command ‘kpartx’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘tpm2-tss’ will not be installed, because command ‘tpm2’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsi-iname’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsiadm’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘iscsi’ will not be installed, because command ‘iscsid’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘nvmf’ will not be installed, because command ‘nvme’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘memstrack’ will not be installed, because command ‘memstrack’ could not be found!
dracut: memstrack is not available
dracut: If you need to use rd.memdebug>=4, please install memstrack and procps-ng
dracut: dracut module ‘squash’ will not be installed, because command ‘mksquashfs’ could not be found!
dracut: dracut module ‘squash’ will not be installed, because command ‘unsquashfs’ could not be found!
dracut: *** Including module: systemd ***
dracut: *** Including module: systemd-initrd ***
dracut: *** Including module: i18n ***
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-modules ***
dracut: *** Including module: kernel-modules-extra ***
dracut: *** Including module: rootfs-block ***
dracut: *** Including module: terminfo ***
dracut: *** Including module: udev-rules ***
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 40-redhat.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 50-firmware.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 50-udev.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 91-permissions.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 80-drivers-modprobe.rules
dracut: Skipping udev rule: 70-persistent-net.rules
dracut: *** Including module: dracut-systemd ***
dracut: *** Including module: usrmount ***
dracut: *** Including module: base ***
dracut: *** Including module: fs-lib ***
dracut: *** Including module: shutdown ***
dracut: *** Including modules done ***
dracut: *** Installing kernel module dependencies ***
dracut: *** Installing kernel module dependencies done ***
dracut: *** Resolving executable dependencies ***
dracut: *** Resolving executable dependencies done ***
dracut: *** Hardlinking files ***
dracut: Mode: real
dracut: Method: sha256
dracut: Files: 794
dracut: Linked: 2 files
dracut: Compared: 0 xattrs
dracut: Compared: 38 files
dracut: Saved: 356.65 KiB
dracut: Duration: 0.009363 seconds
dracut: *** Hardlinking files done ***
dracut: *** Generating early-microcode cpio image ***
dracut: *** Using microcode found in ‘/boot/intel-ucode.img’ ***
dracut: *** Store current command line parameters ***
dracut: *** Stripping files ***
dracut: *** Stripping files done ***
dracut: *** Creating image file ‘/efi/79cb6dd2b9ff4e659be288e0250dc907/6.6.9-arch1-1/initrd’ ***
dracut: *** Creating initramfs image file ‘/efi/79cb6dd2b9ff4e659be288e0250dc907/6.6.9-arch1-1/initrd’ done ***

azry3l · January 6, 2024, 4:17am

I still haven’t found a solution, but I did a couple of things via arch-chroot:

Due to the system not being updated/turned on in a few months, I did pacman -Sy archlinux-keyring && pacman -Su figuring that maybe there was an error when I first updated.
Then I thought I’d do pacman-key --refresh-keys as I saw from another “solution” for infrequent updaters I found online.
Then did another reinstall-kernels

Still in the same boat unfortunately: blank screen after selecting the kernel on boot. Not sure what else I can/should do. I really wanted to see if I could figure this out, but I’m getting more tempted to just reinstall. I have learned one valuable thing though: keep your system up to date! I run EOS as my daily driver on my desktop and I haven’t had any issues. But this laptop hasn’t been turned on in months, so I’m hoping I ran into this error simply because of infrequent updates.

If anyone else has any other solutions to try, please let me know.

xawesomecorex · January 6, 2024, 4:48am

I have the exact same problem and can’t even rebuild from the iso because the mirrors are down. What did you galaxy brains do in the last update? I want my functionality back.

xawesomecorex · January 6, 2024, 4:56am

Do you have an nvidia card by chance? See nvidia doesn’t have the best support and what script kiddies like the Endeavouros team does is just pretend like the user-base that erroneously bought those cards don’t exist and just update with any forethought and break their video drivers. Having this happen five times already, this time being unfixable, plus similar occurrences on numerous other distros kind of makes me reconsider linux in general. I might just go use Windows. I hate Windows but at least my video card works

azry3l · January 6, 2024, 7:03am

I do not have an nvidia card. I’m using intel integrated graphics. I have three different machines running EOS. Haven’t had any problems at all with any of them except this current issue my laptop, but it’s my fault for not keeping it updated. I just wish I could figure out how to fix it.

I guess it depends on what you want out of your system, but I’ve been sticking with linux for the past decade and slowly left windows. Last time I used a windows machine was Windows 7. I’ve used everything from mint to endeavour OS. Endeavour has been my favorite by far.

In general, linux doesn’t always play well with nvidia, so you’ll have to do some troubleshooting here and there. I hope you’re able to find something that works for you.

eRockCE · January 6, 2024, 8:48pm

What version of *systemd* related packages are you running?

I run EOS on two different Intel NUCs; one with integrated Intel only (NUC5), and the other with Intel + nVIDIA (NUC11). The NUC5 is still using grub while the NUC11 is systemd-boot.

Just a couple months ago after an update, I had some strange user-related issues with my NUC11. Things like pipewire/wireplumber did not start so no sound, and my compositor picom stopped working. I don’t use desktop environment or greeter/session manager - just run “startx” to start a window manager, bspwm.

Since I keep my systems updated weekly with a few updates at at time, I narrowed the issue to an update of *systemd* going to 255* for the NUC11 which has been my daily driver and gaming machine for a year now. When I had problems I downgraded the *systemd* packages and have since stayed on version 254.6-2. The NUC5 has no problems with newer systemd. It’s now been a little while since 255 was first released. There’s been a few kernel and dracut updates so I’ve decided to try the systemd update again.

The next time you’re able to get into your system either with arch-chroot or a virtual terminal switch, I recommend installing the openssh package and enabling sshd so you have an additional “back door” to access your system for troubleshooting.

azry3l · January 6, 2024, 9:52pm

It upgraded to 255 right before I ran into the issue. I can try downgrading the packages to see if that works. To be on the safe side, should I downgrade the following?:

systemd
systemd-libs
systemd-resolvconf
systemd-sysvcompat

Any others I’m missing?

eRockCE · January 8, 2024, 4:03am

I also have lib32-systemd. Here is my complete list of “*systemd*” packages installed:

$ yay -Qs systemd | grep "^local" | grep systemd | awk '{ print $1 }' | sort
local/lib32-systemd
local/systemd
local/systemd-libs
local/systemd-sysvcompat

I use the following IgnorePkg line in my /etc/pacman.conf so I’m not caught off guard by updates:

IgnorePkg   = systemd systemd-* *-systemd

Here are some other package ignore lines for /etc/pacman.conf I use that may be useful for you:

IgnorePkg   = coreutils*
IgnorePkg   = dracut*
IgnorePkg   = intel-ucode* *mesa*
IgnorePkg   = alsa-card-profiles *pipewire* *wireplumber*
IgnorePkg   = *vkd3d* *vulkan*
IgnorePkg   = wine*
IgnorePkg   = linux-firmware*
IgnorePkg   = linux linux-headers
IgnorePkg   = linux-zen linux-zen-headers

azry3l · January 9, 2024, 12:45am

Tried right now to downgrade all of the systemd packages, but unfortunately it still doesn’t boot

Thanks for you suggestion, though.

joekamprad · January 9, 2024, 1:08am

not sure if this is an issue with systemd or systemd-boot but hard track down… could be still also related to the GPU driver.

A different kernel could help…
Installing LTS kernel from arch-chroot.

pacman -S linux-lts linux-lts-headers

And mesa itself could be downgraded to 23.3.1

downgrade mesa

But try the one or the other not both in the same run.

eRockCE · January 14, 2024, 1:32am

It’s tough determing the cause of your issue other than the original error message

system has not been booted with systemd as init system (PID 1). Can't operate. Failed to connect to bus: Host is down

I hate to muddy this thread, but based on a similar error message I received a few days ago (but different symptom) after a small package update, I speculate maybe you have an incompatibility between your versions of systemd and dbus.

You could try now also downgrading both dbus and lib32-dbus to version 1.14.10-1 (which is what I’m on and is stable).

With my NUC11 using systemd-boot, I’m currently at the following versions:

$ yay -Q dbus lib32-dbus systemd systemd-libs systemd-sysvcompat lib32-systemd
dbus 1.14.10-1
lib32-dbus 1.14.10-1
systemd 255.2-1
systemd-libs 255.2-1
systemd-sysvcompat 255.2-1
lib32-systemd 255.2-1

Another thing might be a problem/inconsistency is if your systemd-boot boot loader is out of sync. You can check with the following command:

bootctl status

Maybe when you had that large upgrade, some package upgrade hooks did not get exectuted properly.

If the boot loader on your ESP is not up to or higher than the version of systemd packages, you can run the following command:

sudo bootctl update