Plasma desktop not loading properly after update

PorkPieHat · October 29, 2018, 1:56pm

Running the latest Tumbleweed system on a dual-boot setup with Ubuntu 16.04. Additionally i have Ubuntu 18.04 installed on an attached ext USB drive.

Did my regular Tumbleweed (plasma desktop) update on the 27th:

sudo zypper dup

When I next booted back into the system, it was behaving oddly

The symptoms:

The panel

Problems start after login, at the “light-bulb” screen, which hangs for around a minute.

When the plasma desktop finally appears, some of the furniture - the panel which is supposed (on my setup) to be at the top of the screen - is missing.

The panel will typically re-appear after a long interval (10s of minutes). The panel appears with some applets - dropbox, shutter, radiotray-lite - displaying the wrong (native, not papirus-arc) icons. Right-click menus for these apps are not accessible. In addition, the top-panel icon for Cantata, which is started at login, is completely missing. Cantata is actually running (“ps -e | grep cantata”), but the main window is not accessible.

Ah, the system windows…

Dolphin - also started at login - initially shows a home-folder window-frame, but will also snap to something like normal after 10s of minutes

Hard drives not properly listed in Dolphin: I get a column of 9 drive symbols, each labelled “Hard Drive”

If I attempt to open a text doc with kate, the app hangs

Internet is ok

*Boot peculiarites
*
Behavior at boot is odd

My Ubuntu 16.04 system, which is on the same (internal) drive as Tumbleweed, has disappeared from the OS boot menu, though 18.04, on an ext usb drive, is found

sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

initially yielded an error message…something about “os-probe” (wish I’d noted this), but is now OK:

[sudo] password for root: 
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.15-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.15-1-default
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.13-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.13-1-default
Found Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS (16.04) on /dev/nvme0n1p4
Found Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (18.04) on /dev/sda6
done
azed@linux-qnar:~>

What’s going on?

My thought as a Linux bluffer is that GRUB is not “reading” my system properly at boot.

Solution ideas?

I can interrogate my sys via a command terminal, but I don’t know what to ask it

nrickert · October 29, 2018, 2:39pm

Are you using Nvidia graphics? There seem to have been some problems for people with nvidia.

PorkPieHat · October 29, 2018, 8:25pm

Thanks for the reply, nrickert. Re your question:


azed@linux-qnar:~> sudo lspci -v
[sudo] password for root:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 07)
        Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device 5000
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Capabilities: [e0] Vendor Specific Information: Len=10 <?>
        Kernel driver in use: skl_uncore

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation HD Graphics 530 (rev 06) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
        DeviceName:  Onboard IGD
        Subsystem: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd Device d000
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 127
        Memory at f6000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16]
        Memory at e0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256]
        I/O ports at f000 [size=64]
        [virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128]
        Capabilities: [40] Vendor Specific Information: Len=0c <?>
        Capabilities: [70] Express Root Complex Integrated Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [ac] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit-
        Capabilities: [d0] Power Management version 2
        Capabilities: [100] Process Address Space ID (PASID)
        Capabilities: [200] Address Translation Service (ATS)
        Capabilities: [300] Page Request Interface (PRI)
        Kernel driver in use: i915
        Kernel modules: i915

i915 is a bog-standard intel driver, isn’t it?

Further investigations[/size][/size][/size]:

Before I updated Tumbleweed on the 27th, I updated grub in the Ubuntu 18.04 sys (installed on an attached ext USB HDD):

sudo update-grub

Don’t know why I did this; I’ve never done it before

Today, I had a bit of an inspiration: could this grub-update have unsettled the boot (for whatever reason)?

EXPERIMENT 1

To test this idea, I booted back into Tumbleweed without the usb drive attached

**RESULT: Tumbleweed back to normal! No problems
**
Updated grub in TW (I wanted to get the U16.04 system back on the menu):


azed@linux-qnar:~> sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
[sudo] password for root:
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.15-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.15-1-default
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.13-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.13-1-default
Found Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS (16.04) on /dev/nvme0n1p4
done
azed@linux-qnar:~> uname -a
Linux linux-qnar 4.18.15-1-default #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Oct 18 08:56:17 UTC 2018 (5a53676) x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
azed@linux-qnar:~>

Re-booted. But U16.04 still absent from OS boot-menu. Eh?

EXPERIMENT 2

Can we reproduce the original problem by re-attaching the usb (i.e., is the drive really the source of the prob?)

We might as well let grub know it’s been re-attached:


azed@linux-qnar:~> sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
[sudo] password for root: 
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.15-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.15-1-default
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.13-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.13-1-default
rmdir: failed to remove '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Device or resource busy
rmdir: failed to remove '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Device or resource busy
Found Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (18.04) on /dev/sda6
done
azed@linux-qnar:~>

Ah-ha! Some mischief here!

Re-booted

**Result: a broken desktop once again. Also U18.04 on the OS boot-menu, but not U16.04
**
It would thus seem to be the usb / Ubuntu 18.04 system installed thereon that is putting the spanner in the works.

But how? And what do I do about it? I am accustomed to being able to boot into T’weed with the usb attached.[/size]

nrickert · October 29, 2018, 11:28pm

Yes, pretty much. And it should not have given you problems.

Before I updated Tumbleweed on the 27th, I updated grub in the Ubuntu 18.04 sys (installed on an attached ext USB HDD):

sudo update-grub
Don’t know why I did this; I’ve never done it before

Today, I had a bit of an inspiration: could this grub-update have unsettled the boot (for whatever reason)?

Updating grub in Ubuntu should not affect your openSUSE system – or maybe I’m misreading what you did.

The problem for me, now, is that I don’t know enough about your system to be able to tell what is happening. I don’t know what’s on that external drive. I don’t know whether disks are being mounted in a way that might be affected by having an external drive plugged in (which can cause device names to change).

By the way, I do have a box with Tumbleweed, Ubuntu 16.04 and Ubuntu 18.04 all installed. But I’m doing some manual changes to the boot menu, so it doesn’t really compare with your system. Oh, and it is UEFI booting.

mrmazda · October 30, 2018, 1:57am

It is a kernel driver, the only one applicable to post-865 Intel chipsets AFAIK, around 14 years.

X drivers are distinguishable. For your gfxchip, there is the X driver packaged as xf86-video-intel (which hasn’t had an official release in over 3 years), and another (newer) named modesetting not separately packaged, but incorporated in the X server.

inxi -Gxx

if installed, will in Konsole or an Xterm report which of the three are in use, among other things.

PorkPieHat · November 1, 2018, 3:17pm

Latest tinkering:

Here’s the full story on my graphics driver (though I don’t think this is relevant):

azed@linux-qnar:~> inxi -Gxx
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 530 driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:1912 
           Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.2 driver: intel unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa 
           compositor: kwin_x11 resolution: <xdpyinfo missing> 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 530 (Skylake GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 18.1.7 
           compat-v: 3.0 direct render: Yes 
azed@linux-qnar:~>

Yesterday:

Cold start → no probs

Re-booting with ext USB mounted → grunged desktop

The ext USB contains a 400GB NTFS partition (“Trucs”), some swap and and 65GB GB of ext4 given over to Ubuntu “Bionic” (25GB for /, and 40GB for /Home)

In the grunged desktop, I have terminal access. Tried this:

mount
.
.
.
sudo umount /run/media/azed/Bionic
sudo umount /run/media/azed/BionicHome
sudo umount /run/media/azed/Trucs

After last command, desktop snapped into place, albeit with some “wrong”/missing icons in the top panel, as previously

l**og out and in **-> things are back to normal

Tried updating grub:

azed@linux-qnar:~> sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
[sudo] password for root: 
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.15-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.15-1-default
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.13-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.13-1-default
rmdir: failed to remove '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Device or resource busy
rmdir: failed to remove '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Device or resource busy
Found Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (18.04) on /dev/sda6
done
azed@linux-qnar:~>

Ah-ha!

azed@linux-qnar:~> ls -l /var/lib/os-prober
ls: cannot access '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Permission denied
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9 Nov  1 09:38 labels
d????????? ? ?    ?    ?            ? mount
azed@linux-qnar:~>

Wtf!

Re-booting without the WD500 attached:

System came back fine (as expected):

azed@linux-qnar:~> ls -l /var/lib/os-prober
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9 Nov  1 09:38 labels
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Nov  1 09:38 mount

That looks OK. Re-attached ext usb drive

azed@linux-qnar:~> sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
[sudo] password for root: 
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.15-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.15-1-default
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.13-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.13-1-default
Found Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS (16.04) on /dev/nvme0n1p4
Found Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS (18.04) on /dev/sda6
done
azed@linux-qnar:~>

Everything appears hunky-dory

Rebooted

No 16.04 on OS boot menu!

Desktop again grunged

mount
.
.
.
sudo umount /run/media/azed/Trucs

ungrunges it (except for icons not loading in top-panel etc)
Detach drive, logout and in → everything ok

So the Trucs-volume seems to be inhibiting in some way the loading of the T’weed sys. Here’s the o/p of “mount” in the grunged-sys:

azed@linux-qnar:~> mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,size=4016396k,nr_inodes=1004099,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,nosuid,noexec,relatime,gid=5,mode=620,ptmxmode=000)
tmpfs on /run type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,mode=755)
tmpfs on /sys/fs/cgroup type tmpfs (ro,nosuid,nodev,noexec,mode=755)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/unified type cgroup2 (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,nsdelegate)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,xattr,name=systemd)
pstore on /sys/fs/pstore type pstore (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
efivarfs on /sys/firmware/efi/efivars type efivarfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,net_cls,net_prio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,blkio)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/rdma type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,rdma)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpuset)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,cpu,cpuacct)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,perf_event)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/devices type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,devices)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,hugetlb)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/memory type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,memory)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/pids type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,pids)
cgroup on /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer type cgroup (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,freezer)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on / type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=259,subvol=/@/.snapshots/1/snapshot)
systemd-1 on /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc type autofs (rw,relatime,fd=30,pgrp=1,timeout=0,minproto=5,maxproto=5,direct,pipe_ino=15548)
hugetlbfs on /dev/hugepages type hugetlbfs (rw,relatime,pagesize=2M)
debugfs on /sys/kernel/debug type debugfs (rw,relatime)
mqueue on /dev/mqueue type mqueue (rw,relatime)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /.snapshots type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=258,subvol=/@/.snapshots)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /usr/local type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=265,subvol=/@/usr/local)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/cache type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=266,subvol=/@/var/cache)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/lib/named type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=273,subvol=/@/var/lib/named)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /boot/grub2/x86_64-efi type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=261,subvol=/@/boot/grub2/x86_64-efi)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/spool type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=277,subvol=/@/var/spool)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/lib/mysql type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=272,subvol=/@/var/lib/mysql)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/log type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=275,subvol=/@/var/log)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/lib/pgsql type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=274,subvol=/@/var/lib/pgsql)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/opt type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=276,subvol=/@/var/opt)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /opt type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=262,subvol=/@/opt)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/crash type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=267,subvol=/@/var/crash)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/lib/mariadb type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=271,subvol=/@/var/lib/mariadb)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /srv type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=263,subvol=/@/srv)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/lib/machines type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=269,subvol=/@/var/lib/machines)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /tmp type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=264,subvol=/@/tmp)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /boot/grub2/i386-pc type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=260,subvol=/@/boot/grub2/i386-pc)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/lib/mailman type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=270,subvol=/@/var/lib/mailman)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/lib/libvirt/images type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=268,subvol=/@/var/lib/libvirt/images)
/dev/nvme0n1p7 on /var/tmp type btrfs (rw,relatime,ssd,space_cache,subvolid=278,subvol=/@/var/tmp)
/dev/nvme0n1p1 on /boot/efi type vfat (rw,relatime,fmask=0077,dmask=0077,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro)
/dev/nvme0n1p2 on /mnt/WinC type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,allow_other,blksize=4096,x-gvfs-show)
fusectl on /sys/fs/fuse/connections type fusectl (rw,relatime) <---
/dev/nvme0n1p8 on /home type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=805052k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=100)
/dev/sda7 on /run/media/azed/BionicHome type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uhelper=udisks2)
/dev/sda6 on /run/media/azed/Bionic type ext4 (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uhelper=udisks2)
/dev/sda1 on /run/media/azed/Trucs type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,uhelper=udisks2)   <------------------
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
/dev/fuse on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
grub2-mount on /var/lib/os-prober/mount type fuse.grub2-mount (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0)
azed@linux-qnar:~>

“<----” = my addition

A Question to close:

Where does Tumbleweed keep its log of what happened at boot / its general log of system behaviour?

knurpht · November 1, 2018, 3:28pm

There’s


/var/log/boot.log

but also


journalctl

Do a


man journalctl

to read about the parameters / options you can use.

PorkPieHat · November 5, 2018, 10:43am

I can’t find any problem in the journals / boot-logs**. My system seems to be behaving as it thinks it should

Let’s take stock**

I have two problems:

The desktop won’t load properly while an NTFS-vol on an ext usb drive is mounted
sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg Finds the U16.04-sys on the main drive of my machine, but won’t list it in the /boot/grub2/grub.cfg-menu

OK, let’s boot TW without the ext USB drive attached. if the problem is the ext drive, for whatever reason, then* both* the above probs should disappear

RESULTS:

As expected, no problem with the desktop
OK, so can we get U16.04 back on the grub-menu?

sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

returns:

Found theme: /boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.15-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.15-1-default
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.13-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.13-1-default
Found Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS (16.04) on /dev/nvme0n1p4
done

But U16.04 is still missing from the menu

Eh?

**Repeating (madness, I know), we get:
**

azed@linux-qnar:~> sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.15-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.15-1-default
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.13-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.13-1-default
rmdir: failed to remove '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Device or resource busy
rmdir: failed to remove '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Device or resource busy
done
azed@linux-qnar:~>

CONCLUSION:

The problem is not caused, or not entirely caused, by the ext USB drive that I usually have attached to my machine

Hmm. So what then is causing it?

**Let’s have a closer look at /var/lib/os-prober/mount
**

azed@linux-qnar:~> ls -l /var/lib/os-prober                   
ls: cannot access '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Permission denied
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9 Nov  4 16:57 labels
d????????? ? ?    ?    ?            ? mount

**Wtf?

Talking of mount:**

azed@linux-qnar:~> mount
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
proc on /proc type proc (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
devtmpfs on /dev type devtmpfs (rw,nosuid,size=4016392k,nr_inodes=1004098,mode=755)
securityfs on /sys/kernel/security type securityfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
       **.**
[Lots more of this stuff]
       **.**
/dev/nvme0n1p8 on /home type xfs (rw,relatime,attr2,inode64,noquota)
tmpfs on /run/user/1000 type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,size=805048k,mode=700,uid=1000,gid=100)
gvfsd-fuse on /run/user/1000/gvfs type fuse.gvfsd-fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
/dev/fuse on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/debug/tracing type tracefs (rw,relatime)
grub2-mount on /var/lib/os-prober/mount type fuse.grub2-mount (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0)

**What’s with that last line?
**
Let’s try unmounting /var/lib/os-prober/mount. What does that do?

azed@linux-qnar:~> sudo umount /var/lib/os-prober/mount
azed@linux-qnar:~> ls -l /var/lib/os-prober
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9 Nov  4 16:57 labels
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 0 Nov  4 16:57 mount

That looks better!

Let’s try to get U16.04 on the boot-menu once more

sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Same result:

Found theme: /boot/grub2/themes/openSUSE/theme.txt
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.15-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.15-1-default
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.18.13-1-default
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd-4.18.13-1-default
Found Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS (16.04) on /dev/nvme0n1p4
done

azed@linux-qnar:~> ls -l /var/lib/os-prober                   
ls: cannot access '/var/lib/os-prober/mount': Permission denied
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9 Nov  4 16:57 labels
d????????? ? ?    ?    ?            ? mount

And (part of o/p from “mount”):

/dev/fuse on /run/user/1000/doc type fuse (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=1000,group_id=100)
tracefs on /sys/kernel/debug/tracing type tracefs (rw,relatime)
grub2-mount on /var/lib/os-prober/mount type fuse.grub2-mount (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0)

**And still no U16.04 on the boot-menu!
**
**Hmmm. My problems appeared after a sys update on 27 October. Was os-prober one of the packages updated?
**
Consults notes:

v | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Oss | openSUSE-release-ftp | 20181015-594.1 | 20181022-613.1 | x86_64
v | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Oss | os-prober | 1.74-7.1 | 1.76-1.1 | x86_64
v | openSUSE-Tumbleweed-Oss | oxygen5-icon-theme | 5.50.0-1.1 | 5.51.0-1.1 | noarch

Ah-ha, it was!

THOUGHTS

Now grub2-mount fuse-mounts on /var/lib/os-prober/mount, and problems here seem to stop U16.04 from being added to the OS boot-menu
My other problem, the NTFS-volume on an ext USB that prevents the desktop from loading properly,* also fuse-mounts*:

/dev/sda1 on /run/media/azed/Trucs type fuseblk (rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other,blksize=4096,uhelper=udisks2)

CONCLUSION:

**So I’m wondering: are my problems being caused by wrong fusermount permissions / problems with the fuse-system?
**
I am especially wondering this because, a long time ago (last November), I fixed another problem - lack of access to crontab - using the solution given in post #18 of this bug report:

https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1041159

The solution involved adding a “trusted”-group, and changing the group of certain packages (full details of this solution and its implementation can be provided). One of these packages was crontab, but another was fusermount

I’m thinking that this old “solution”, after an update of os-prober, has come back to bite me on the bum. But how to proceed?

mrmazda · November 5, 2018, 11:00am

Re: #2: Have a look at https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1113615

nrickert · November 5, 2018, 2:23pm

Yes, I think that’s the OP’s problem. Hopefully, a fix will come with the next Tumbleweed snapshot.

PorkPieHat · November 6, 2018, 10:57am

Re: mrmazda’s post above

Looks promising, thanks

nrickert · November 8, 2018, 7:37pm

This problem appears to have been solved with the 20181107 snapshot. After that, “grub2-mkconfig” is now properly adding entries to the boot menu.

PorkPieHat · November 10, 2018, 6:42pm

Check. Updated today (os-prober one of the updates); both problems went away:

My NTFS volume on an external USB drive now mounts OK at boot / login (whatever). Desktop loads as it should
The system finds the Ubuntu 16.04 system on the main (on-board) drive, and adds an appropriate entry to the boot-menu, as it should.

Whoever fixed this, thanks

PorkPieHat · December 12, 2018, 3:04pm

False dawn, the problem with my external NTFS-vol came back (never really went away).

Fixed the problem by stopping the mounting ext. volumes on login (duh!)

The details

-> Desktop menu

-> Settings

-> System settings

In the new window

-> Hardware [2nd from final category in the gui in my sys]

-> Removable Storage

In the new window

-> Removable devices

Now uncheck the “Automount at login”-box for the volume that you don’t want mounted

Hit “Apply” and close the window.

Job done. The attached partitions will still show in Dolphin and can be mounted in the usual way, post-login.