EDIT: I kinda solved it by installing Wayland (on my Nvidia card, Ouch!) to replace Xorg. Not sure if this is gonna last though. Perhaps Manjaro is the one I’m gonna throw out FIRST if anything happens from now on.
What should be the first line of defense? Timeshift?
This happened after I installed AUR package masterpdfeditor and 2 applications from github (some hashing algorithm programs, I think they were “Dilithium” and “Latice-based-cryptography-main”, one of them was provided by NIST.)
If using GUI: I login, black screen for few seconds, then back at login screen.
If going to ctrl+alt+f2, login successful, then startx, see picture provided (higher quality).
I tried adding a new user, but result is the same.
I have a live usb to do the Timeshift. (I can also chroot if necessary… But I’m not extremely professional)
ah classic mistake of installing AUR packages on manjaro. been there done that. check your logs and search for errors, it probably overwrote/deleted some xorg config that you must either manually add back or regenerate. sorry i can’t help further im a linux noobie but that was my issue when this happened to me.
Why would a package called “masterpdfcreator” overwrite the x conf? I don’t think the AUR packages have anything to do with the problem.
ah sorry it’s more accurate to say it can “break” your xorg config cause that was my case. looking at this package it has libgl as one of its dependencies. as i have said i’m not familiar with how exactly it works but it can probably mess with your graphics drivers.
Most stable Manjaro experience
deleted by creator
Please kindly shut up if you’re not even going to attempt to help OP. Their issue had nothing to do with the distro.
Allrighty, let’s try turning it into “helping”. When one finds themselves using manjaro, they should:
- Prepare a flash drive with recent arch iso flashed (that shouldn’t be strictly necessary, but just in case);
- Go to the pacman’s mirrorlist and replace their repos with the proper ones (i.e. from arch);
- Do a
-Syyuu base --overwrite=*; - (optional) In case of trouble, boot to the drive flashed at step 0, make necessary mounts,
arch-chroot, solve the problems. One can also trypacstrap-inginstead.
This is a rather high-level overview off the top of my head, and one would likely have to make a few tweaks here and there. Still, I hope it helps :)
What you described would ruin a perfectly good install. It’s like installing Ubuntu then switching the repos to Debian and force overwriting installed files. Why not just install Debian (or Arch, in this case)?
I wonder how many people follow “well meaning” advice like this then blame Manjaro.
Well, that’s kinda how I once converted my artix to arch (skipping a few f-ups on my part and the caveats of switching init), so I’m pretty sure it can work… Although I can try this in a VM if I have some spare time
It may work but there’s no point in doing it. You get something that’s neither proper Arch nor Manjaro.
Manjaro is built around a branch which doesn’t exist in Arch, unlike other Arch derivates, and mixing the installed Manjaro packages with Arch packages can lead to unpredictable results.
Don’t use startx to start X, use the display manager: systemctl restart lightdm
It said I not found or something. I’ll try again tomorrow for full error message
On most platforms, you’ll want to
sudo systemctl start gdmif you installed Gnome.As for the login issue, that can be anything from a crash in Gnome itself to a program crashing and calling to a logout (or suffering from the famous
kill(-1)bug).Try installing/finishing updates through the command line and rebooting, that usually fixes GUI problems like these in my experience.
If you have it setup timeshift should work…
But please know that the AUR + Manjaro is not a supported or recommend combination. The AUR is intended to be used with the official Arch repos; Manjaro repos are often weeks or sometimes even up to a month behind. Even the Manjaro devs put a warning for this reason.
Consider using EndeavorOS orarchinstall, else this won’t be the last time something like this happens.Master PDF Editor is on Flathub. If anything can be installed as a flatpak, I would try that first. If a program fits in a sandbox, consuming the files that I give it and drawing in its own little window, Flatpak has that down cold. If a program wants the ability to stick its hands into the guts of other programs and system services and shared libraries - that should happen at the distro level or not at all.
Check
/etc/hostnameThis is based on the image, the best you can do it check the logs like other comments said, it’s better if the error is identified through the log.
It’s not about the host name. They clearly have invalid mappings in their ~/.Xmodmap (if you’d care to look at the picture).
My comment is based on
MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1from the log in the picture. Look at it again and there’s alsoSocketCreateListener() failed. So OP may check this as wellhttps://wiki.archlinux.org/title/xorg#SocketCreateListener_error
One of your steps should be to throw Manjaro in the trash and install EndeavourOS instead.
How would their problem be any different on Endeavour? They are circumventing the normal X greeter and starting a custom X session.
Classic, never fix anything, just change to <my preferred distro>, you wouldnt have experienced any problems, ever
I would usually agree but Manjaro is a broken piece of garbage. Use Arch or Endeavour if you want to gain experience on an arch based distro.
Endeavour is just the newest flavour of Manjaro. Arch but not Arch with a shiny wrapper and a shiny forum. In time it’ll suffer from the same fate as Manjaro, and become the detested Arch fork, as new rivals take its place.
If that’s what you think then you don’t understand why people complain about manjaro. It’s the 1 week package delay to “ensure testing”. There have been bugs that were released in arch and a week later in manjaro, no fix nothing. Also, if you use manjaro and the AUR, which they promote as a possibility, you might have a versioning issue where the AUR package expects packages a week faster than manjaro gets them, and that can actually, very easily, break your system.
Endeavour IS arch but not arch with a shiny wrapper and a shiny forum, that’s good, Manjaro is NOT that.
EOS is basically arch but has some packages of theirs that are pulled from their repos, but every other package comes directly from arch, any update comes from arch and so on. They basically reinstall some utility programs and leave you to your devices, no bullshit.
If you want to compare Eos to anything, try garuda, those two are very similar to my understanding.
This issue is more than likely caused by Manjaro itself.
So yeah, probably would not have experienced this issue on EndeavourOS, that’s right.
This issue is more than likely caused by Manjaro itself.
The issue is caused by OP disabling lightdm and using a custom X session. It would’ve backfired on any distro on the planet, because they messed up something in that session.
I agree that manjaro is shit, but “your distro is shit” is not helpful advice for someone who wants to get their graphical session back.
Of course it’s not, hence why I said “one of your steps”.
As in, get your data back, and then drop Manjaro.
so why would Envdeavor not experience this issue? Does it simply not have the AUR? That’s very unfortunate. Or are they simply not holding back like in Arch?
Or are they simply not holding back like in Arch?
I’ll assume you mean Manjaro here – Arch doesn’t hold back packages.
And yes, Manjaro holds back packages from the main Arch repos which can break compatibility with the AUR.
EndeavourOS is pretty much literally a GUI installer for Arch.
I’ll assume you mean Manjaro here – Arch doesn’t hold back packages.
ouch, yes, my bad
I think I kinda solved it by installing Wayland. It seems to work, even on my proprietary nvidia drivers
Manjaro holds back packages from the main Arch repos which can break compatibility with the AUR.
Except (1) that’s not a thing that really happens and (2) what happened to OP was done by themselves not by an AUR package.
It is a unmodified Arch install that has a prepackaged setup, so you get a running desktop very easily and get the full.power and configurability of Arch
therr is nothing wring with AUR the problem is manjaro holding off arch packages causes massive dependency problems
OP’s problem was not caused by an AUR package. They’re leaving out some details about how they ruined their X setup themselves.
I hate to admit it but perhaps it is not such a bad advice…
For my personal curiosity, how on Earth did you end up uninstalling lightdm and using startx? Did you follow a tutorial? Where do you even get this kind of advice?
For future reference what you did is not for beginners and it would have messed up any distro. It has nothing to do with Manjaro.
Try an immutable distro, maybe that will stand up better to this kind of thing.
I didn’t uninstall lightdm. I was under the impression that startx would just start the GUI, regardless of what “engine” it’s running on.
startx makes a new X server, which uses the programs you put in ~/.xinitrc and the X server depends on the first program in there that runs in the foreground. If that program dies it doesn’t start, the X server doesn’t either.
Have you checked the log files under /var/log/xorg.0…log?
Also see https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Xorg#Troubleshooting
If you want to get your graphical session back quickly, maybe try setting up GNOME with wayland (https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GNOME#Wayland_sessions)
I second the wayland option. Then you at least have a working gui with all your settings and recent work intact while you try to find the glitch in your Xorg install.
You can also check /var/log/pacman.log for the packages you installed, then pacman -Ql the packages to list what files they might have changed
If nothing else, run weston. It’s not an amazing wayland server, but it’s something.
How did you go about installing the other two packages from git? Do you know what directory they were first cloned to? Did you build from source or run an executable like an appimage? Did any of these actions occur prior to the install of masterpdfeditor?
I’m not usually one to blame the distro but… as another comment here has stated, “Most stable manjaro experience”. Try EndeavorOS, it’s manjaro but not bad.
Ok so clearly none of the people commenting here have even bothered to look at your picture or have no idea what you are doing so feel free to ignore them.
Question 1: what’s in your .xinitrc?
Question 2: why are you starting X this way? It’s not for beginners, and from your question it doesn’t sound like you’re an advanced user.
Question 1: what’s in your .xinitrc?
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/ei9hajgzugfs4qnmg9r1f/h?rlkey=bnedoohvpuilvuzqvgmhi7pda&e=2&dl=0
It also contains the logs people mentioned I should check. The
Xorg.0*files are from the day of the crash, and 2 days later, when I booted again, the other files were created:Xorg.1*Question 2: why are you starting X this way?
I was under the impression that
startxwould just start the GUI regardless what display manager I use (lightdm? not sure), or display server (xorg, x11 in my case) I have installed.EDIT: it took me wayyy too long to copy these files. Apparently
ls -lhdoes not show hidden files … I thought my whole laptop went nuts.it doesn’t sound like you’re an advanced user.
You’re god damn right
If you have LightDM as your display manager, try some other display managers.
Manjaro is not up-to-date with Arch repos. Using AUR in Manjaro is a huge mistake.
If you wanna use AUR, I suggest you to go all in with Arch itself
However I still recommend you to use AUR as less as possible, cause too many AUR can mess even with Arch
However I still recommend you to use AUR as less as possible, cause too many AUR can mess even with Arch
Based on what?
Based on Arch USER Repository.
AUR packages are maintained by users and can install and overwrite packages in your system and if you install AUR enough, you’ll certainly install a package that corrupts your system.
That’s ridiculous. You can blindly install crap that breaks your system on any distro. Just don’t blindly install things from the AUR and you’ll be fine.
Definitely can. But AUR make it easier, once it’s not officially supported and has permission to install things on your base system with root access.
It’s kinda the same as you download a deb file and install it or use ppa on debian-based distro. All of that can make your system breaks, but in other distros the general recommendation is to use official repos always when the app is available on repos
Right – so like I said, nothing to do with the AUR and everything to do with being smart about what software you install.
I’m using 75 AUR packages without any issues and I’ve been using Manjaro for 4 years. But I’m really worried now that you’ve said that. 😬 When should I begin to expect AUR trouble? Does it happen on the 5th year? What if I reinstall, do I get another 4 years?
Good for you. Have you heard about anecdotal evidence already?
I’m hearing anecdotal evidence all the time, from people who avoid using AUR packages. I’m a person who uses them, and uses a lot of them, and has been doing it for extended periods of time. That’s not anecdotal, it’s concrete proof.
