No terminal will open after system update

General system Kernel & Hardware
#1

I just did an update, and now I can’t seem to allocate any pseudoterminals. I can open everything else (read: everything graphical). I’ve tried multiple window managers, and my fallback kernel. Any ideas?

My post in Superuser:

#2

Can you post system logs:

3 Likes
#3

Must not have been a proper update? Partial? :thinking:

2 Likes
#4

Can you still drop to a tty?

Are you use bash? fish? zsh?

1 Like
#5

The solution will most likely involve entering terminal commands. You might be able to get a fullscreen terminal by holding the keys CTRL + ALT + F2. To switch back to the desktop hold down CTRL + ALT + F1

edit:
Xfce: ALT + F2 ?

Unfortunately I don’t know the solution to this problem.

#6

Superuser link shows Cinnamon and Xfce installed? Not a very clear picture of the problem. :man_shrugging:

#8

Have you tried to login from TTY as mentioned above by @mrvictory.

If you can, then you could run the commands from there.

Edit: sorry @mrvictory and @Melways I saw the M and … :blush:

#9

The SU link (which I should’ve also mentioned here) says that all of my WMs experience the problem, including both XFCE and Cinnamon. Cinnamon, though, specifically shows a spinning mouse icon when I click on my Terminal link (the rest of the WMs just seem to ignore my invoking the terminal completely).

#11

Sorry!
My bad!
Try logging in from TTY as stated above by @Melways.

#12

It’s OK - I don’t mind being known as Mister Victory :rofl:

2 Likes
#13

My thinking was that if you can get a terminal in Xfce via ALT + F2 then after logging in there you could:

sudo pacman -S xfce4-terminal

Maybe you had 1 terminal emulator across desktops that somehow where uninstalled.

#14

What is ALL of your WMs? What’s installed? Multiple desktops?

1 Like
#15

Done via an SSH session, but no difference.

#16

A TTY (teletype) terminal, not a ptty/pseudoterminal.

#17

Yes, BASH.

#18

My point is that it’s window-manager agnostic. It’s happening everywhere. XFCE and Cinnamon (mentioned in that same comment), and Gnome.

#19

Thanks for all of the responses.

It’s not an application problem, it’s presumably a pseudoterminal problem in that I can’t open a terminal window in any sense, though I can open an SSH session to myself, which seems like a paradox. Normal terminals work fine.

I’ve replaced the original Superuser post with this one, which is specific to it being a pseudoterminal anomaly:

As requested directly/indirectly above, this is my journalctl output:

https://tinyurl.com/yujz328t

I didn’t see any present/useful Xorg/X11 logging even though this is also, arguably, an X11 problem.

#20

is selfdestroyed already …

#21

Thanks. I’ve fixed it there, but here it is, too:

https://tinyurl.com/yujz328t

#22 
May 22 15:46:25 dustinxps /usr/lib/gdm-x-session[5863]: /usr/bin/xfce4-terminal: error while loading shared libraries: libicuuc.so.70: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Try reinstalling:

  1 core/icu 71.1-1 [installed]
  2 extra/harfbuzz-icu 4.3.0-1 [installed]
  9 multilib/lib32-icu 71.1-1 [installed]

:edit: it is looking for 70, 71 is the current, looks like a partial upgrade, either ssh or chroot in and try and update.

1 Like