Fail to reach desktop and am only given command line screen

English Install/Boot/Login
#1

Hi all,

The machine has running well (usually one shutdown/boot cycle per day) but this morning when it boots it can only reach command line login prompt, it seems it has almost reached the desktop as the mouse cursor flashed for a second then I’m thrown back to the cmd line login prompt.

Machine info: TW, Plasma 5 wayland, OS updated 2-3 days ago,

  1. Nothing unusual in
journalctl -b -p err

, just a few benign errors that have been there for months.
2. Tried several snapshots even back to a few days ago before the last OS update, same boot result.
3. Tried recovery mode, same boot result.
4. Don’t remember doing anything particular to the machine during the last normal boot. If anything, yesterday I had this "The screen locker is broken and unlocking is impossible, use

loginctl unlock-session 5

,…Ctrl+D, Ctrl+Alt+F2 to get back" message. I followed the message but it failed at a certain step so I had to “Ctrl+Alt+Del” to reboot, but it boot fine, and that’s the last normal session.
5. I use autologin for my account.

My guess is that some config/settings in my home folder is causing the issue, but I have no idea where to start to solve this.

#2

Had you previously booted OK on kernel 5.19.1, then dup’d to include 5.19.2 yesterday?

If you login as a virgin test user, is all good?

If you try an X11 session instead of Wayland, is it OK?

If you try an IceWM session, is it OK?

If while logged out of X, you delete the content of ~/.cache/, does it help when trying to login to your usual session?

Does removing amdgpu-pro drivers help?

Most, but not all, of KDE/Plasma’s settings files in ~/.config/ are obvious who they belong to. You could try selective deleting there while not logged into Plasma. Various settings will be lost according to whatever you delete.

#3

Switched to autologin and rebooted. You may show journal of displaymanger:

**erlangen:~ #** journalctl -b -u display-manager.service  
Aug 23 10:30:46 erlangen systemd[1]: Starting X Display Manager... 
Aug 23 10:30:46 erlangen display-manager[1006]: /etc/vconsole.conf available 
Aug 23 10:30:46 erlangen display-manager[1006]: KEYMAP: de-nodeadkeys 
Aug 23 10:30:46 erlangen display-manager[1006]: Command: localectl set-keymap de-nodeadkeys 
Aug 23 10:30:46 erlangen display-manager[1006]: I: Using systemd /usr/share/systemd/kbd-model-map mapping 
Aug 23 10:30:46 erlangen sddm[1045]: Initializing...
Aug 23 10:30:46 erlangen sddm[1045]: Starting...
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Logind interface found
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Adding new display on vt 7 ...
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Loading theme configuration from ""
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Display server starting...
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /run/sddm/{48d4f101-cc83-42d8-a0d8-94c5dd542b6f} -background none -noreset -displayfd 17 -seat seat0 vt7
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen systemd[1]: Started X Display Manager. 
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Setting default cursor
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Running display setup script  "/usr/etc/X11/xdm/Xsetup"
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Display server started.
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Reading from "/usr/share/xsessions/default.desktop"
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Reading from "/usr/share/xsessions/default.desktop"
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Session "/usr/share/xsessions/default.desktop" selected, command: "/usr/bin/startplasma-x11"
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm-helper[1166]: [PAM] Starting...
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm-helper[1166]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm-helper[1166]: [PAM] returning.
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Authenticated successfully
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm-helper[1166]: pam_unix(sddm-autologin:session): session opened for user karl(uid=1000) by (uid=0) 
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm-helper[1166]: Starting: "/usr/etc/X11/xdm/Xsession \"/usr/bin/startplasma-x11\"" 
Aug 23 10:30:47 erlangen sddm[1045]: Session started
**erlangen:~ #**
#4

Did a zypper dup during the command line session and reboot, it worked. I thought it’s fixed but when I reboot, I was thrown to the cmd login again.

Did more test and I found that if I disable auto-login, I can reach the GUI login, then it would be OK to continue. As long as auto-login is enabled, it couldn’t reach the desktop.

It’s strange though after a zypper dup it had worked, even though auto-login was not disabled that time.

Will do more test to see what works and what not.

#5

One thing I can confirm is that with Plasma Wayland, autologin fails to boot to desktop 90% of the time (not always fail).
With Plasma X11, there’s no such issue.

Wayland has such a long way to go.