How can I ensure my third Arch install stays running?

[FatDroid]

I am getting to the point where I call it a day with Arch, so I really would appreciate some help on this. I have used Arch before and had it as my only distro for months before switching to Mint because I wanted something where every update would just work. Ive got bored of that and wanted to come back to Arch as I find it runs better (when it runs) than a lot of the other distros I have tried. It is light, uses hardly any system resources, and I like that KDE lets you chnage pretty much every part of the OS. I know KDE is available on Mint but Ive tried it and had issues.

Yesterday I put Arch back on my laptop - a ThinkPad T440p, something more than capable of running it - got it all set up and pressed leave. I wanted to see how my sddm lock screen thingy looked after changing it. I got stuck with the messages 'Loading Linux linux ...' & 'Loading initial ramdisks ...'. The system completely locked up so I had to hold the power button to turn it off. On startup, I got stuck with the same messages and nothing was working. After a reinstall, I took a Timeshift snapshot, got to setting it all up, powered off and turned it back on with no issue. Then I changed my sddm style again and pressed leave, only this time to be stuck with an underscore on the top left of the screen and once again, a completely unresponsive system and I wasnt able to load my timeshift snapshot through the USB as somebody suggested somewhere else as it decided there wasnt enough space, even though there was.

This morning Ive picked the laptop up and reinstalled Arch along with firefox, fastfetch, power profiles daemon and made sure to have both the linux linux kernel and the lts kernel, aswell as using the open source graphics drivers rather than the intel ones in case that had something to do with it, and thats where Im at now.
Ive done nothing else other than connecting to the internet and logging in here to make this post. I really do want Arch over Mint, Debian, or Arch based distros as its the one Ive learnt on and the one that seems to be snappier than anything else.

At this point what exactly should I do to keep this running as it should? I dont even want to make a backup in case my issues have been something to do with that. Any help with this would be hugely appreciated as I use this laptop more than any other PC including my desktop, and I intend to be using it for work too.

Cheers in advance, I really am desperate to get this working as it should.

 

[FatDroid]

Ive run fastfetch and pacman -Qe to show exactly what the system is and what is on it if that helps diagnose this ridiculous issue.

Ive also just done some searching online and somebody else was having a similar issue but they could press ctrl, alt, F3 and it allowed them to use commands but I didnt know about that and I dont want to try and cause the same issue just to end up back at the beginning of all this. These issues that seem to be somewhere behind the desktop are new to me so I have no idea how to solve them.

 

[Aristarchus]

Sorry to hear about your troubles.
You have impeccable hardware to run linux. Not many packages, up to date kernel. Memory usage is low.
My system is pretty stable (closing 4yrs since the installation).
There are major differences:
I am still on KDE 5.x
While my hardware is a bit different, this is still all Intel (I think that Intel in terms of stability is the best for Linux).

In my opinion your issue may be related to sddm or wayland.
I have seen your post regarding similar problems with other distros. If common denominator was sddm or wayland then this is your culprit.
In such case I would try lightdm instead of sddm and/or run sddm with X11 if you have it available (I don't know if KDE 6.x supports X11 anymore).
Also see if you can put system to sleep without logging out. In fact logging out may not be necessary if your system is configured to autologoff.
Another thing to try is to restart sddm after the failed session.
Finally, check your logs. Maybe you will see some errors that will help to solve your problems.

If you noticed other users with similar issues, then take look at their hardware listing and co fig (if provided).

Good luck

ctrl, alt, F3

This is just swithing to another terminal window. You should see a prompt where you can kill current sddm session and restart sddm. You can always switch back with ctrl alt F7 assuming standard shortcuts.

 

[FatDroid]

Sorry to hear about your troubles.
You have impeccable hardware to run linux. Not many packages, up to date kernel. Memory usage is low.
My system is pretty stable (closing 4yrs since the installation).
There are major differences:
I am still on KDE 5.x
While my hardware is a bit different, this is still all Intel (I think that Intel in terms of stability is the best for Linux).

In my opinion your issue may be related to sddm or wayland.
I have seen your post regarding similar problems with other distros. If common denominator was sddm or wayland then this is your culprit.
In such case I would try lightdm instead of sddm and/or run sddm with X11 if you have it available (I don't know if KDE 6.x supports X11 anymore).
Also see if you can put system to sleep without logging out. In fact logging out may not be necessary if your system is configured to autologoff.
Another thing to try is to restart sddm after the failed session.
Finally, check your logs. Maybe you will see some errors that will help to solve your problems.

If you noticed other users with similar issues, then take look at their hardware listing and co fig (if provided).

Good luck


This is just swithing to another terminal window. You should see a prompt where you can kill current sddm session and restart sddm. You can always switch back with ctrl alt F7 assuming standard shortcuts.

Thanks, I know it's way above what Arch needs to run which is part of the confusion, it's obviously not a lack of processing power or a shortage of ram for example, it's strange. My last laptop was a little weaker than this in terms of hardware specs yet that could run it fine and it did for months before I switch to Mint out of boredom.

I'll look into changing from sddm to something else before I switch to X11 to narrow it down a bit more but before setting it all up again I tried

Sorry to hear about your troubles.
You have impeccable hardware to run linux. Not many packages, up to date kernel. Memory usage is low.
My system is pretty stable (closing 4yrs since the installation).
There are major differences:
I am still on KDE 5.x
While my hardware is a bit different, this is still all Intel (I think that Intel in terms of stability is the best for Linux).

In my opinion your issue may be related to sddm or wayland.
I have seen your post regarding similar problems with other distros. If common denominator was sddm or wayland then this is your culprit.
In such case I would try lightdm instead of sddm and/or run sddm with X11 if you have it available (I don't know if KDE 6.x supports X11 anymore).
Also see if you can put system to sleep without logging out. In fact logging out may not be necessary if your system is configured to autologoff.
Another thing to try is to restart sddm after the failed session.
Finally, check your logs. Maybe you will see some errors that will help to solve your problems.

If you noticed other users with similar issues, then take look at their hardware listing and co fig (if provided).

Good luck

This is just swithing to another terminal window. You should see a prompt where you can kill current sddm session and restart sddm. You can always switch back with ctrl alt F7 assuming standard shortcuts.

This is the one of the more confusing parts about it all, I had a different laptop before that didn't have hardware as good as this and that was on Arch for months, the only reason I ever changed that from Arch was boredom. Intel being better for Linux makes it all even more annoying - out of all my computers this is one of the only ones that is all Intel based and fast enough to get 'real world' use out of.

I think Ill have go with X11 if I still have the option available, if Im still getting issues after Ill give the lightdm a try too.
Im hoping that whatever this issue is can be sorted by simply not altering anything in sddm at all aside from wallpaper. Its ugly as it is and I wouldn't mind changing that to something a bit nicer regardless of what I end up with but if that is the issue, I can live with an ugly stat screen.
How do I go about checking the logs? Thats something I wanted to upload earlier but I dont have a clue how to find them.

Unfortunately I wasn't getting any sort of prompt to kill & restart sddm at all just a static underscore. If that is a possibility and works and I can get back in the system after an install, that would go a long way to fixing the issue

 

[FatDroid]

I have an update! I dont know if it is related to the issues Ive been having but I have just turned off the setting that makes the cursor get bigger when you shake the mouse and as I did this I got a notification saying Kaccess crashed, here is the report it gave:


Application: kaccess (kaccess), signal: Segmentation fault


This GDB supports auto-downloading debuginfo from the following URLs:
<https://debuginfod.archlinux.org>
Enable debuginfod for this session? (y or [n]) [answered N; input not from terminal]
Debuginfod has been disabled.
To make this setting permanent, add 'set debuginfod enabled off' to .gdbinit.

warning: Can't open file anon_inode:i915.gem during file-backed mapping note processing
[New LWP 2328]
[New LWP 2330]
[Thread debugging using libthread_db enabled]
Using host libthread_db library "/usr/lib/libthread_db.so.1".
Core was generated by `/usr/bin/kaccess'.
Program terminated with signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
#0 0x00007a8feaca5624 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libc.so.6
[Current thread is 1 (Thread 0x7a8fea5834c0 (LWP 2328))]
Cannot QML trace cores
/usr/share/drkonqi/gdb/python/gdb_preamble/preamble.py:547: DeprecationWarning: datetime.datetime.utcfromtimestamp() is deprecated and scheduled for removal in a future version. Use timezone-aware objects to represent datetimes in UTC: datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(timestamp, datetime.UTC).
boot_time = datetime.utcfromtimestamp(psutil.boot_time()).strftime('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S')
/usr/share/drkonqi/gdb/python/gdb_preamble/preamble.py:564: DeprecationWarning: datetime.datetime.utcnow() is deprecated and scheduled for removal in a future version. Use timezone-aware objects to represent datetimes in UTC: datetime.datetime.now(datetime.UTC).
'timestamp': datetime.utcnow().isoformat(),
[Current thread is 1 (Thread 0x7a8fea5834c0 (LWP 2328))]

Thread 2 (Thread 0x7a8fe6ffe6c0 (LWP 2330)):
#0 0x00007a8feacabbe2 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libc.so.6
#1 0x00007a8feac9fe33 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libc.so.6
#2 0x00007a8feac9fe74 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libc.so.6
#3 0x00007a8fead1a53e in poll () from /usr/lib/libc.so.6
#4 0x00007a8fec31520b in ?? () from /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1
#5 0x00007a8fec316f3d in xcb_wait_for_event () from /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1
#6 0x00007a8fe9b21cb9 in ?? () from /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/platforms/../../../libQt6XcbQpa.so.6
#7 0x00007a8feb4d8a9b in ?? () from /usr/lib/libQt6Core.so.6
#8 0x00007a8feaca370a in ?? () from /usr/lib/libc.so.6
#9 0x00007a8fead27aac in ?? () from /usr/lib/libc.so.6

Thread 1 (Thread 0x7a8fea5834c0 (LWP 2328)):
[KCrash Handler]
#4 0x00007a8febadf7aa in ?? () from /usr/lib/libQt6Gui.so.6
#5 0x00007a8febbcfa1f in QPointingDevice::~QPointingDevice() () from /usr/lib/libQt6Gui.so.6
#6 0x00007a8fe9b28cb0 in ?? () from /usr/lib/qt6/plugins/platforms/../../../libQt6XcbQpa.so.6
#7 0x00007a8feb3a2e5e in QObject::event(QEvent*) () from /usr/lib/libQt6Core.so.6
#8 0x00007a8fec4ff0ca in QApplicationPrivate::notify_helper(QObject*, QEvent*) () from /usr/lib/libQt6Widgets.so.6
#9 0x00007a8feb355b00 in QCoreApplication::notifyInternal2(QObject*, QEvent*) () from /usr/lib/libQt6Core.so.6
#10 0x00007a8feb355edc in QCoreApplicationPrivate::sendPostedEvents(QObject*, int, QThreadData*) () from /usr/lib/libQt6Core.so.6
#11 0x00007a8feb62fc50 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libQt6Core.so.6
#12 0x00007a8feb4d8515 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libQt6Core.so.6
#13 0x00007a8feac4de00 in __cxa_finalize () from /usr/lib/libc.so.6
#14 0x00007a8feb2cc3a8 in ?? () from /usr/lib/libQt6Core.so.6
#15 0x00007ffec7704c60 in ?? ()
Backtrace stopped: previous frame identical to this frame (corrupt stack?)


No idea of this is related or if its even helpful but its something at least

 

[dos2unix]

What is the output of...

dmesg | grep -Ei 'warn|error|fail|supported'

 

[FatDroid]

What is the output of...

dmesg | grep -Ei 'warn|error|fail|supported'

For security reasons, the password you type will not be visible.

[sudo] password for dale:
[ 0.185591] pci 0000:00:14.0: PME# supported from D3hot D3cold
[ 0.185765] pci 0000:00:16.0: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.186021] pci 0000:00:19.0: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.186185] pci 0000:00:1a.0: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.186360] pci 0000:00:1b.0: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.186530] pci 0000:00:1c.0: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.186949] pci 0000:00:1c.1: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.187386] pci 0000:00:1d.0: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.187727] pci 0000:00:1f.2: PME# supported from D3hot
[ 0.188433] pci 0000:02:00.0: PME# supported from D1 D2 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.193420] pci 0000:03:00.0: PME# supported from D0 D3hot D3cold
[ 0.374663] RAS: Correctable Errors collector initialized.
[ 1.171422] thinkpad_acpi: This ThinkPad has standard ACPI backlight brightness control, supported by the ACPI video driver
[ 3.604424] ACPI Warning: SystemIO range 0x0000000000001828-0x000000000000182F conflicts with OpRegion 0x0000000000001800-0x000000000000187F (\_SB.PCI0.LPC.PMIO) (20240827/utaddress-204)
[ 3.604442] ACPI Warning: SystemIO range 0x0000000000000840-0x000000000000084F conflicts with OpRegion 0x0000000000000800-0x000000000000087F (\_SB.PCI0.LPC.LPIO) (20240827/utaddress-204)
[ 3.604449] ACPI Warning: SystemIO range 0x0000000000000830-0x000000000000083F conflicts with OpRegion 0x0000000000000800-0x000000000000087F (\_SB.PCI0.LPC.LPIO) (20240827/utaddress-204)
[ 3.604455] ACPI Warning: SystemIO range 0x0000000000000800-0x000000000000082F conflicts with OpRegion 0x0000000000000800-0x000000000000087F (\_SB.PCI0.LPC.LPIO) (20240827/utaddress-204)
[ 3.806802] platform regulatory.0: Direct firmware load for regulatory.db failed with error -2
[ 3.806808] cfg80211: failed to load regulatory.db
[ 5.151468] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:1 (0x1001)
[ 5.151476] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:6 (0x1001)
[ 5.151480] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:7 (0x1001)
[ 5.151483] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:8 (0x1001)
[ 5.151486] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:3 (0x1001)
[ 5.151489] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:9 (0x1001)
[ 5.151492] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:10 (0x1001)
[ 5.151495] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:12 (0x1001)
[ 5.432538] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:1 (0x1001)
[ 5.432546] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:6 (0x1001)
[ 5.432548] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:7 (0x1001)
[ 5.432550] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:8 (0x1001)
[ 5.432552] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:3 (0x1001)
[ 5.432554] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:9 (0x1001)
[ 5.432555] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:10 (0x1001)
[ 5.432558] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:12 (0x1001)
[ 2300.971998] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:1 (0x1001)
[ 2300.972005] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:6 (0x1001)
[ 2300.972007] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:7 (0x1001)
[ 2300.972009] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:8 (0x1001)
[ 2300.972011] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:3 (0x1001)
[ 2300.972012] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:9 (0x1001)
[ 2300.972014] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:10 (0x1001)
[ 2300.972016] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:12 (0x1001)
[ 2302.003289] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:1 (0x1001)
[ 2302.003298] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:6 (0x1001)
[ 2302.003300] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:7 (0x1001)
[ 2302.003302] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:8 (0x1001)
[ 2302.003304] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:3 (0x1001)
[ 2302.003306] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:9 (0x1001)
[ 2302.003308] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:10 (0x1001)
[ 2302.003310] ACPI: \: failed to evaluate _DSM bf0212f2-788f-c64d-a5b3-1f738e285ade rev:0 func:12 (0x1001)


This is it. Im seeing a lot of failures there - could these be the issue?

 

[Oldhabbits]

I see a lot of ACPI errors, could be related to your bios and/or kernel version.
To get any clue what your system is like, please post the output of

inxi -Fza

Greetz,
Eddy

 

[FatDroid]

I see a lot of ACPI errors, could be related to your bios and/or kernel version.
What is the output of

uname -a

[dale@archlinux ~]$ uname -a
Linux archlinux 6.12.16-1-lts #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri, 21 Feb 2025 19:20:31 +0000 x86_64 GNU/Linux

 

[Oldhabbits]

Linux archlinux 6.12.16-1-lts

Okey, it's a LTS kernal and that is good... I suppose you don't have any BIOS upgrade available from the manufacturer ?
I would ignore those errors than, and try to work with X11 instead of Wayland...
Also, you do have the correct drivers installed for the graphic card ?
And I know for a fact that SDDM has its problems right now, although on my (Apple-) system it works without a issue.

Greetz,
Eddy

 

[FatDroid]

Im glad to hear the kernel is not an issue then, this is good. As for a BIOS update Im not entirely sure, there could be. This laptop is quite old and I got it second hand so Ill have a look and see.
Somebody else mentioned switching to X11 and I completely forgot to do that so Ill switch over as soon as Ive replied to you.
For the GPU drivers, on the last two installs I was using Intel open source from the arch install, this time Ive used the default open source option from the installer so I believe they're Noveau or whatever thats called?
SDDM is having issues - now that is very interesting. Im going through setting it all up now and all seems to be running fine. Hopefully that is indeed the issue and leaving it wont cause any other issues to pop up.

Cheers for that reply, Its certainly a helpful one that should go some way to pointing me in the right direction of a fix

 

[f33dm3bits]

My system is pretty stable (closing 4yrs since the installation).
There are major differences:
I am still on KDE 5.x

How are you on KDE Plasm 5.x on Arch when partial upgrades aren't supported with Arch Linux or you just did that anyways by excluding KDE Plasma packages from being updated?

 

[Aristarchus]

How are you on KDE Plasm 5.x on Arch when partial upgrades aren't supported with Arch Linux or you just did that anyways by excluding KDE Plasma packages from being updated?

I never said that I am running Arch.

 

[GatorsFan]

Arch is not stable, by Debian standards if you want something that works - Debian

I have used Arch in the past but got tired of some updates breaking things, so I stayed with a Debian/Devuan based OS and no more issues

 

[FatDroid]

Arch is not stable, by Debian standards if you want something that works - Debian

I have used Arch in the past but got tired of some updates breaking things, so I stayed with a Debian/Devuan based OS and no more issues

Id argue that although Arch is not stable, with the correct setup and maintenance it can be as stable as anything else. Not updating the second an update becomes available and instead leaving updates as a once a week job will only lessen the chances of instability too. I may be wrong, but thats how I see it anyway.

I cant find any reason to disagree with Debian though, that is easily one of the most stable distros I have tried hands down.

 

[FatDroid]

I want to put a quick update one here for everyone who has commented about my issues.

I have updated the system, set it all up, and spent a good few hours using it. This morning I have gone back to it and it has started up without issues, everything seems to be working well. Ive not made any sort of backup yet but I am about to do so and store that to my second drive, so if I do end up needing to reinstall I can do that and just go straight back to where I am now.
The weird problem of it black screening and becoming unresponisve was only happening when pressing leave and then log out. I dont really want to press that anymore in case something goes wrong but last night I did it a few times, including choosing to log out, switch user, restart and power off - they all worked without issue.

A couple of you told me to change from Wayland to X11, somebody elsewhere mentioned it might be GPU and somebody told me to go to lightdm instead of sddm. These are all still things I will keep in mind to change should I need to go through that entire ordeal again, but as of right now the only things I have changed and kept permanent are:

1, the Kernel. I have gone from 'Linux linux' to 'Linux LTS', but I have made sure to keep both of them on the system just in case.
2, the GPU drivers. On the last two installs I have installed the option for Intel. This time, I went with whatever the default is in the archinstall script.

Here are my system specs:
Lenovo ThinkPad T440p
Intel core i5-4300m - Intel HD 4000 (not 100% sure on the GPU)
8gb memory
128gb Samsung boot drive
1tb Crucial BX SSD
16GB Sandisk SATA Nvme

I dont know if listing the specs is helpful but theyre there if anybody can figure it all out.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to help me get it sorted, the Reddit crowd & the rest of the Arch community could learn a lot about how to actually help folk from you people.