Here is the situation:
- I am running an AMD 5950X with 64GB of RAM.
- I am running the latest openSUSE Tumbleweed Linux system snapshot [today].
- Every morning I run an update of the flatpak programs on my system by running “sudo flatpak update” from the terminal. I have no problem there: the update executes.
- I next run “sudo zypper dup” in the terminal to determine whether there are any updates to be applied.
- If there are no updates, I continue as normal.
- If there are updates, I attempt to do a CTRL-Alt-F1 to bring up a login terminal so I can run the zypper update from there, as is the usual custom with TW.
- This is where the problem occurs: CTRL-Alt-F1 does not bring up a terminal. I have to then press “Enter” at which point it drops into the terminal.
- The second issue is that when CTRl-Alt-F1 does not work, the mouse cursor - which is wireless - disappears and does not work - or at least is not visible.
- Note that the mouse is wireless, and the USB wireless plug is attached to a USB cable which is attached to the USB port on the computer. This is done because I get a certain degree of interference from the system motherboard if the USB plug is inserted directly into the computer’s USB port.
- Note that the keyboard is wired, not wireless.
What could be causing these two issues: the failure of CTRL-Alt-F1 and the disappearing cursor?
I asked Gemini AI to diagnose, and it gets confused because the GUI session is running in TTY2 and not tty1 or tty7. I did some research and can’t determine why that is, except that it may have something to do with how systemd sets up the session. I’m inclined to believe that has nothing to do with the issue because my other system, the Beelink, also runs on tty2 and Ctl-Al-F1 works fine on it.
It’s not a disaster because hitting the Enter key does get me to the login terminal, so I can run my daily update, and then reboot back into the system where everything is fine again - the CTL-Alt-F1 works fine and the cursor is back.
It just seems weird that after I do my flatpak update and run zypper dup in my ordinary console session, then exit all the open apps and try to switch to a virtual terminal that suddenly the Ctl-Alt-F1 doesn’t work and the cursor disappears. The Ai seems to think that for some reason - big help that - the system is not completing the Ctl-Alt-F1 and then “somehow” hitting the Enter key “nudges” it into completing that action. This makes no sense to me.
I’ve burrowed through the various logs and can’t find anything happening at that exact moment which could conceivably explain it.
Oh, and this just started happening yesterday - prior to that, never a problem switching to a virtual terminal.
Anyone have any ideas? Where to look?
Default Display Manager:
/usr/lib/X11/displaymanagers/sddm
Default Session Desktop:
/usr/share/xsessions/plasma6.desktop
/system.slice/display-manager-legacy.service
├─ 2076 /usr/bin/sddm
└─21089 /usr/bin/Xorg.bin -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 vt2 -auth /run/sddm/xauth_IegZeZ -noreset -displayfd 18
KWin version: 6.3.4
Qt Version: 6.9.0
Qt compile version: 6.9.0
XCB compile version: 1.17.0
Operation Mode: X11
Compositing
Compositing is active
Compositing Type: OpenGL
OpenGL vendor string: AMD
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon RX 550 Series (radeonsi, polaris11, ACO, DRM 3.61, 6.14.4-1-default)
OpenGL version string: 4.6 (Compatibility Profile) Mesa 25.0.5
OpenGL platform interface: GLX
OpenGL shading language version string: 4.60
Driver: Unknown
GPU class: Unknown
OpenGL version: 4.6
GLSL version: 4.60
Mesa version: 25.0.5
X server version: 1.21.1
Linux kernel version: 6.14.4