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Help to troubleshoot...Freeze before desktop (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee to c/linux@lemmy.world

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Hi guys! I have KDE Neon 6.2.3 running on my Surface Pro 7+, and up until now it's been running rather smoothly, for years. But today I seem to be unable to fully boot anymore on normal mode. Linux will get stuck on the KDE spinning gear, with the gear frozen. And it becomes unresponsive, to open alternative consoles with control+alt+Fx, or even control+alt+del. The only thing that works is a force shutdown by holding the power button.

I tried with a previous kernel, with the same results (current is linux-image-6.10.10-surface-1, I have a generic 6.8.0-49, but it also freezes). I can boot in safe mode. It opens a different login screen, and after a failed attempt of opening lxde, it fails back to my usual KDE session, in safe graphics mode.

What can I test? How can I see what failed at boot?

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[–] anamethatisnt@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago (16 children)

When you've booted in safe mode you can use journalctl to check what's going on.
https://www.howtogeek.com/499623/how-to-use-journalctl-to-read-linux-system-logs/
https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/journalctl.1.html

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (15 children)

Thanks. I pulled the journalctl. This is...A bit extensive. EDIT: Well seems I only can see the KDE logo and a frozen gear, but according to systemctl the system is up and running, and the network connected? After 7 seconds frozen I give up once more and hold power button, since this is the only thing it seems to react to, and yet, even this gets logged onto journalctl.

[–] Earflap@reddthat.com 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

You need to specify the -b switch or you're just looking at logs for the current session. Something like journalctl -xe -b 1 should do the trick.

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Just an update. Today I made a rescuezilla full backup of the whole drive, and then wiped and installed KDE Neon brand new from Dec 1st release from their page. Guess what...that one ALSO fails to boot.

[–] Earflap@reddthat.com 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

OK so just to confirm: you get a boot freeze even on a fresh install before you restore a backup?

Are you able to boot a liveusb?

I would try another distro just to rule out a software problem but it sounds like hardware failure. I would test your ram, graphics card, and storage medium. Do you have an SSD or an HDD?

[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemm.ee 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I actually clicked on the replace partition option on the installer, instead of a full disk wipe. The profile did look brand new once I managed to login in safe mode, but I didn't stay too long to check, as I just concluded hell, if it only boots in safe mode I might as well continue troubleshooting on the original install.

Anyway...After going back to the original image (as I had it backed up anyway), I paid a bit more attention at that weird popup on safe mode as I logged in, mentioning it failed to launch startlxde. So I ran

sudo dpkg --reconfigure sddm

And on the menu, for some reason sddm wasn't the first choice. After choosing it again, this time it went straight to the boot screen. Some other day I'll check again whichever random login menu is installed, and remove it, as it clearly causes issues.

[–] Earflap@reddthat.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

Ah ha! Problem solved then. Nice troubleshooting skills!

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