GNOME will not start on boot (fresh Manjaro 20.1 install)

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 2:51pm

I bought an HP laptop yesterday, here it is: https://support.hp.com/ee-en/document/c06703649
I had windows 10 preinstalled and I wanted to dual boot it with Manjaro GNOME (I need windows for university stuff).
I installed it and the graphical interface wouldnt appear at all, I was stuck with a balck screen, I could go into the text mode with ctrl alt F5 tho. I updated the system, did simple updating stuff thru the terminal. After rebooting that didnt help. On other manjaro groups I found some help and it looks like upon startup the GNOME enviroment cannot load. After running the command:

sudo systemctl restart gdm

GNOME would start and work properly. (as a side note, during installation, booting from live usb, I didnt have ANY issues with the graphical enviroment).
Here is output of journalctl -e -u gdm command:

I have polish datetime, “wrz” is just short for september.

wrz 27 01:30:15 john-hp systemd[1]: gdm.service: Succeeded.
wrz 27 01:30:15 john-hp systemd[1]: Stopped GNOME Display Manager.
-- Reboot --
wrz 27 01:30:29 john-hp systemd[1]: Starting GNOME Display Manager...
wrz 27 01:30:29 john-hp systemd[1]: Started GNOME Display Manager.
wrz 27 01:30:29 john-hp gdm[498]: Child process -680 was already dead.
wrz 27 01:31:41 john-hp systemd[1]: Stopping GNOME Display Manager...
wrz 27 01:31:41 john-hp systemd[1]: gdm.service: Succeeded.
wrz 27 01:31:41 john-hp systemd[1]: Stopped GNOME Display Manager.
-- Reboot --
wrz 27 13:35:48 john-hp systemd[1]: Starting GNOME Display Manager...
wrz 27 13:35:48 john-hp systemd[1]: Started GNOME Display Manager.
wrz 27 13:35:48 john-hp gdm[485]: Child process -599 was already dead.
wrz 27 13:37:31 john-hp systemd[1]: Stopping GNOME Display Manager...
wrz 27 13:37:31 john-hp systemd[1]: gdm.service: Succeeded.
wrz 27 13:37:31 john-hp systemd[1]: Stopped GNOME Display Manager.
wrz 27 13:37:31 john-hp systemd[1]: Starting GNOME Display Manager...
wrz 27 13:37:31 john-hp systemd[1]: Started GNOME Display Manager.
wrz 27 13:37:38 john-hp gdm-password][1489]: gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
wrz 27 13:37:38 john-hp gdm-password][1489]: gkr-pam: stashed password to try later in open session
wrz 27 13:37:38 john-hp gdm-password][1489]: pam_systemd_home(gdm-password:account): systemd-homed is not available: Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.home1.service not found.
wrz 27 13:37:38 john-hp gdm-password][1489]: pam_unix(gdm-password:session): session opened for user john(uid=1000) by (uid=0)
wrz 27 13:37:38 john-hp gdm-password][1489]: gkr-pam: gnome-keyring-daemon started properly and unlocked keyring

I tried reinstalling Manjaro GNOME 20.1 3 times, each installation had the same problem. ( I also tried flashing the USB stick a few times by downloading the iso a few times)

Also my inxi:

~ >>> inxi -Fzxxm                                                                                                                                                                                                 
System:    Kernel: 5.8.6-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: N/A Desktop: GNOME 3.36.6 tk: GTK 3.24.23 wm: gnome-shell dm: GDM 
           Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:   Type: Convertible System: HP product: HP ENVY x360 Convertible 13-ay0xxx v: Type1ProductConfigId serial: <filter> 
           Chassis: type: 31 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: HP model: 876E v: 12.36 serial: <filter> UEFI: Insyde v: F.12 date: 07/28/2020 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT1 charge: 49.6 Wh condition: 51.4/51.0 Wh (101%) volts: 12.9/11.6 model: Hewlett-Packard PABAS0241231 
           serial: <filter> status: Discharging 
           Device-1: hid-0018:04F3:2AF4.0001-battery model: ELAN2514:00 04F3:2AF4 serial: N/A charge: N/A status: N/A 
Memory:    RAM: total: 15.09 GiB used: 1.68 GiB (11.2%) 
           RAM Report: permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:       Topology: 8-Core model: AMD Ryzen 7 4700U with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MCP arch: Zen rev: 1 
           L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm bogomips: 31948 
           Speed: 1397 MHz min/max: 1400/2000 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1396 2: 1398 3: 1397 4: 1400 5: 1400 6: 1397 7: 1397 
           8: 1397 
Graphics:  Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Renoir vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.0 
           chip ID: 1002:1636 
           Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.8 compositor: gnome-shell driver: amdgpu,ati unloaded: modesetting 
           alternate: fbdev,vesa resolution: <xdpyinfo missing> 
           OpenGL: renderer: AMD RENOIR (DRM 3.38.0 5.8.6-1-MANJARO LLVM 10.0.1) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.1.7 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.1 
           chip ID: 1002:1637 
           Device-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Raven/Raven2/FireFlight/Renoir Audio Processor vendor: Hewlett-Packard 
           driver: snd_rn_pci_acp3x v: kernel bus ID: 04:00.5 chip ID: 1022:15e2 
           Device-3: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] Family 17h HD Audio vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
           bus ID: 04:00.6 chip ID: 1022:15e3 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.8.6-1-MANJARO 
Network:   Device-1: Realtek RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Hewlett-Packard driver: rtw_8822ce 
           v: N/A port: 2000 bus ID: 01:00.0 chip ID: 10ec:c822 
           IF: wlo1 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 476.94 GiB used: 7.17 GiB (1.5%) 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Western Digital model: PC SN520 SDAPNUW-512G-1006 size: 476.94 GiB speed: 15.8 Gb/s 
           lanes: 2 serial: <filter> 
Partition: ID-1: / size: 233.31 GiB used: 7.09 GiB (3.0%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p5 
Swap:      Alert: No Swap data was found. 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 30.9 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 30 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Info:      Processes: 295 Uptime: 26m Init: systemd v: 246 Compilers: gcc: N/A Packages: pacman: 1120 Shell: Zsh v: 5.8 
           running in: gnome-terminal inxi: 3.1.05 
~ >>>

I woudl really like to run GNOME enviroment on my laptop, please help me fix it.

Im sorry i posted this post previously in a wrong category

crvi · September 27, 2020, 4:07pm

Hi @John1776,

Welcome to GNOME discourse.

I guess a full journalctl output since boot would help here.

Thanks.

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 4:35pm

On other forums they told me to try lightdm but that had the same effect, I also tried changing acpi_backlight to native, vendor and video, but also nothing. Here is the full journalctl, i changed back to dm (from lightdm) :

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 4:41pm

It does not let me upload the .txt file with journalctl output, its 4megs in size

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 4:44pm

Ok i got it, that is since the last reboot

crvi · September 27, 2020, 7:42pm

Issue obviously seems to be with X11 and AMD Radeon graphics card. So, likely not a GNOME issue.

Did you select:

driver=free

or

driver=non-free

in the first boot menu of the installation ?

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 8:00pm

I did not change that, so the default option
I think the default one is “free”

crvi · September 27, 2020, 8:11pm

Might be worth trying non-free.

Before that, you might also want to find why

sudo systemctl restart gdm

works. Maybe, you can look / share the journalctl logs when running the above command to see what’s going on.

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 8:12pm

How can i post that jounral from only running this command? journal has a ton of stuff when I run it just by itself

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 8:21pm

Okay, I think that its this part:
https://pastebin.pl/view/726331b3
(I just tried it)

crvi · September 27, 2020, 8:46pm

Comparing the logs:

Failing case:

wrz 27 18:26:13 john-hp /usr/lib/gdm-x-session[634]: (II) RADEON: Driver for ATI/AMD Radeon chipsets:

Passing case:

wrz 27 22:14:47 john-hp /usr/lib/gdm-x-session[1102]: (II) AMDGPU: Driver for AMD Radeon:

Seems like 'amdgpu' driver ( which i guess is a generic AMD GPU driver ) works fine, but 'radeon' driver is having issues. It was also the case in the 'inxi' command output in the topic description, which displayed 'amdgpu' driver.

So, you can see how to load 'amdgpu' as default for your graphics card.

Thanks

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 8:52pm

Sooo, I basically need to change my setting so that amdgpu is instead of radeon, because it cannot find drivers for radeon right? Do you maybe have any idea where I should start looking for it?
Also, I dont have anything of value on that installation, should I try to install it with non-free drivers?

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 9:10pm

I added modprobe.blacklist=radeon to grub. At least i didnt have any red FAILURE text but this is the result:

Also I cannot get into text mode anymore for some reason

crvi · September 27, 2020, 9:40pm

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1893624 might be of help.

I would also like to point out that, this is not a GNOME issue, and you should try to get help from more appropriate official Manjaro support channels.

Thanks !

John1776 · September 27, 2020, 9:43pm

Prior to getting help from you, I didn’t even know the issue. Thank you very much

system · October 11, 2020, 9:47pm

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