The Sequel to '' Fedora 42 Upgrade Black Screen ''

amanti · June 11, 2026, 8:33pm

Background . . .

Ask Fedora > Fedora 42 Upgrade Black Screen

I was encouraged to start this new post, with guidance, and to keep the scope the same.

The original installation was Fedora 25.

GPT. UEFI. LVM File System.

I have plenty of space on the /boot and /boot/efi partitions.

Recommended Debugging Tool : Inxi

FOUR CLUES . . .

Four clues that serve to guide or direct toward the solution of [ my ] mysterious black screen.

When the Fedora 42 kernel is added to Grub, an SELinux Alert occurs .
The Fedora 43 kernel booting [ after UpGrade # dnf5 offline reboot AND before black screen ].
The CTRL-ALT-F3 tty3 Login.
Inxi

CLUE # 1 : The Fedora 42 kernal added to Grub is : * Fedora Linux (6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64) 42 (Workstation Edition)

Reference / Information

The SELinux Alert Details’ Text is . . .

SELinux is preventing anaconda-genera from write access on the sock_file /var/lib/sss/pipes/nss.

***** Plugin catchall (100. confidence) suggests ************************** 

If you believe that anaconda-genera should be allowed write access on the nss sock_file by default. Then you should report this as a bug. 

You can generate a local policy module to allow this access. 

Do allow this access for now by executing: 
# ausearch -c 'anaconda-genera' --raw | audit2allow -M my-anacondagenera # semodule -X 300 -i my-anacondagenera.pp 

Additional Information: 
Source Context system_u:system_r:anaconda_generator_t:s0 Target Context system_u:object_r:sssd_var_lib_t:s0 Target Objects /var/lib/sss/pipes/nss [ sock_file ] Source anaconda-genera 

Source Path anaconda-genera Port Unknown Host localhost.localdomain 

Source RPM Packages Target RPM Packages SELinux Policy RPM selinux-policy-targeted-42.24-1.fc42.noarch 

Local Policy RPM selinux-policy-targeted-42.24-1.fc42.noarch Selinux Enabled True 

Policy Type targeted Enforcing Mode Enforcing Host Name localhost.localdomain 

Platform Linux localhost.localdomain 6.8.9-100.fc38.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu May 2 18:50:49 UTC 2024 x86_64 

Alert Count 2 First Seen 2026-06-10 09:36:15 CDT Last Seen 2026-06-10 09:36:16 CDT 

Local ID 0bd10558-787f-4b55-b996-12c98fd61039 

Raw Audit Messages 
type=AVC msg=audit(1781102176.79:411): avc: denied { write } for pid=17859 comm=''anaconda-genera'' name=''nss'' dev=''dm-0'' ino=1966157 

scontext=system_u:system_r:anaconda_generator_t:s0 

tcontext=system_u:object_r:sssd_var_lib_t:s0 

tclass=sock_file permissive=1 Hash: anaconda-genera,anaconda_generator_t,sssd_var_lib_t,sock_file,write

Terminal Window . . . ‘’ Is this ok [y/N]: ‘’ ?

# dnf update 'kernel*'
. . .
Transaction Summary:
 Installing:         5 packages
 Upgrading:          2 packages
 Replacing:          2 packages
 Removing:           5 packages

Total size of inbound packages is 198 MiB. Need to download 198 MiB.

After this operation, 5 MiB extra will be used (install 270 MiB, remove 265 MiB).

Is this ok [y/N]: y

[1/7] kernel-modules-extra-0:6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64                                                             100% | 291.8 KiB/s |   4.8 MiB |  00m17s
[2/7] kernel-0:6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64                                                                           100% | 401.1 KiB/s | 447.6 KiB |  00m01s
[3/7] kernel-core-0:6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64                                                                      100% | 270.5 KiB/s |  20.1 MiB |  01m16s
[4/7] kernel-tools-0:6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64                                                                     100% | 252.4 KiB/s | 747.7 KiB |  00m03s
[5/7] kernel-tools-libs-0:6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64                                                                100% | 261.3 KiB/s | 461.9 KiB |  00m02s
[6/7] kernel-modules-core-0:6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64                                                              100% | 366.0 KiB/s |  72.6 MiB |  03m23s
[7/7] kernel-modules-0:6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64                                                                   100% | 438.9 KiB/s |  98.7 MiB |  03m50s
-------------------

CLUE # 2 : The Fedora 43 kernel booting [ before black screen ] is :

*Fedora Linux (7.0.12-100.fc43.x86_64) 43 (Workstation Edition)

CLUE # 3 : The CTRL-ALT-F3 tty3 Login.

Can I log in at the tty3 login prompt ?
No. TTY3 is not interacting with the keyboard.
Is there a capability I could turn on to enable the tty3 login ?

CLUE # 4 : Inxi

$ sudo dnf install inxi

$ inxi -Fzxx

root@localhost:~# inxi -Fzxx
System:
  Kernel: 6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64 arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc
    v: 15.2.1
  Console: pty pts/2 wm: gnome-shell DM: GDM Distro: Fedora Linux 42
    (Workstation Edition)

Machine:
  Type: Desktop Mobo: ASRock model: Z170 Extreme4 serial: <filter>
    Firmware: UEFI vendor: American Megatrends v: P7.50 date: 01/22/2018

CPU:
  Info: quad core model: Intel Core i7-6700 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
    arch: Skylake-S rev: 3 cache: L1: 256 KiB L2: 1024 KiB L3: 8 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 800 min/max: 800/3400 cores: 1: 800 2: 800 3: 800 4: 800
    5: 800 6: 800 7: 800 8: 800 bogomips: 54398
  Flags-basic: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx

Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Skylake-S GT2 [HD Graphics 530] vendor: ASRock driver: i915
    v: kernel arch: Gen-9 ports: active: HDMI-A-3 empty: DP-1,HDMI-A-1,HDMI-A-2
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:1912
  
Display: unspecified server: X.Org v: 24.1.11 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.11
    compositor: gnome-shell driver: dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: :0
    screens: 1
  
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96
  
Monitor-1: HDMI-A-3 mapped: HDMI-3 model: LG (GoldStar) E2250
    res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 102 diag: 547mm (21.5")
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: intel mesa v: 25.1.9 glx-v: 1.4 es-v: 3.2
    direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 530 (SKL GT2)
    device-ID: 8086:1912
  
API: EGL Message: EGL data requires eglinfo. Check --recommends.
  Info: Tools: api: glxinfo x11: xdriinfo, xdpyinfo, xprop, xrandr

Audio:
  Device-1: Intel 100 Series/C230 Series Family HD 

Audio vendor: ASRock
    driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:a170
  
API: ALSA v: k6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64 status: kernel-api
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.4.11 status: active (process) with:
    1: pipewire-pulse status: active 2: wireplumber status: active
    3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin

Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: ASRock driver: e1000e v: kernel
    port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6 chip-ID: 8086:15b8
  IF: enp0s31f6 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IF-ID-1: virbr0 state: down mac: <filter>

Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 55.9 GiB used: 26.35 GiB (47.1%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Patriot model: Blaze size: 55.9 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s
    serial: <filter> temp: 30 C

Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 32.18 GiB used: 14.42 GiB (44.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/dm-0
    mapped: fedora-root
  ID-2: /boot size: 973.4 MiB used: 141.9 MiB (14.6%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-3: /boot/efi size: 199.8 MiB used: 25.1 MiB (12.6%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-4: /home size: 15.69 GiB used: 11.77 GiB (75.0%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/dm-2 mapped: fedora-home

Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 5.59 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -1
    dev: /dev/dm-1 mapped: fedora-swap
  ID-2: swap-2 type: zram size: 7.43 GiB used: 36 KiB (0.0%) priority: 100
    dev: /dev/zram0

Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 34.0 C pch: 40.0 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Info:
  
Memory: total: 8 GiB available: 7.43 GiB used: 4.1 GiB (55.2%) igpu: 256 MiB
  
Processes: 319 Power: uptime: 1h 25m wakeups: 0 

Init: systemd v: 257
    target: graphical (5) default: graphical
  Packages: pm: rpm pkgs: N/A note: see --rpm 

Compilers: gcc: 15.2.1
    
Shell: Bash v: 5.2.37 running-in: gnome-terminal 

inxi: 3.3.40

root@localhost:~#

amanti · June 12, 2026, 12:59am

Filesystem Information

Above, fedora-home has 3.1 G available.

Below, UpGrade needs to install 8 G.

Is this ok [y/N]: ?

Perhaps NOT . . .

ilikelinux · June 12, 2026, 2:06pm

Mmmmm, not really what we told you. We mentioned that F25 is long time since and that to much changed.
You should make a backup of your data and do a start over (tabula rasa), installing Fedora new.
I try to repeat why:

You are running out of space because you are limited into the fix partitions which are to small for the actual installations.

Fedora uses newly (since F33!) BTRFS which does not have a limitation of partition sizes. This means the partitions / & /home in BTRFS share their space as subvolumes.

$ lsblk /dev/sdb
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sdb      8:16   0 223,6G  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   0   600M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sdb2   8:18   0     2G  0 part /boot
└─sdb3   8:19   0   221G  0 part /home
                                /
$ lsblk /dev/sdb -f
NAME   FSTYPE FSVER LABEL         UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sdb                                                                                   
├─sdb1 vfat   FAT32               43FD-7366                             578,8M     3% /boot/efi
├─sdb2 ext4   1.0                 0182dcd9-4a1a-4b62-934c-0d03d02885c0    1,2G    31% /boot
└─sdb3 btrfs        fedora_fedo44 e913af3f-32bc-4b61-bbb5-95c893b09ba5    191G    13% /home
                                                                                     /

No more swap partitions. The swap is made with zram and uses a part dinamically from your memory (RAM). You will gain additional 5.59 GiB disk space! (see output inxi, above)
```
lsblk
NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS

zram0  251:0    0     8G  0 disk [SWAP]
```

P.S.
All examples are from my installation.

What you should do now:

Backup your data, did you backup already? I not talk about a disk image, otherwise you will bring back old F25 stuff.
Create a F44 boot device from a Live ISO to test your system. I propose to use a respin. They come with newest kernel. To test if this works as is should. The live respins you find here:
```
https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/live-respins/
```
If you can boot and your Hardware is doing what it should, you are ready to reinstall your system. If not please create a separate topic with the specific issue you have, we try to help you as good as we can.

When reinstalling, I propose to let fedora do the work of partitioning. Then you get the layout what I showed above with the sizes of your disk/memory.

amanti · June 12, 2026, 5:02pm

About one year ago, I bought a new pair of much larger SSDs for ‘‘this’’ server PC. The PC’s download directory likely has the files needed for a fresh install of the applications environment to replicate the current environment . . .

on top of a Fresh Fedora Workstation installation and

on top of BTRFS.

That said, I have another life project I need to complete before getting started on this.

( My Fedora 42 SSDs and image backups will be preserved for safe keeping. )

amanti · June 12, 2026, 9:30pm

Reminder, don’t forget to Walk . . .

Walking Is the Only Exercise Your Body Was Actually Designed For

Why Walking Backwards FIXES What Forward Walking Breaks

amanti · June 13, 2026, 3:40pm

Step # 2 should be Step # 1 and should be ‘’ before UpDating ‘’ ( and not ‘’ UpGrading ‘’ ).

Step # 3, about backups again is redundant. DELETE.

Insert / ADD a step [ before UpDating ] to ADD the latest kernel.

ADD the last step [ after UpGrading ], Verify Grub’s first ’ * ’ menu item is associated with the current release.

And, these steps should not be Nested the way they are. These steps should be at a higher level so that the chronology is obvious and perfectly clear.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

glb · June 13, 2026, 4:15pm

Is it supposed to show server: X.Org? I thought that was deprecated and everything is supposed to be Wayland now?

For comparison, here is what my PC is showing:

Display: wayland server: Xwayland v: 24.1.12 compositor: Sway v: 1.11

amanti · June 13, 2026, 4:22pm

As a casual Fedora user [ definately not an expert ], this question is way above my pay grade.

However, feel free to discuss.

glb · June 13, 2026, 4:29pm

I see that you got that output while running Fedora Linux 42, so maybe that is OK. X.Org was removed in Fedora Linux 43.^[1] However, if the automatic migration to Wayland isn’t working for you when you upgrade to Fedora Linux 43, that might be why you are getting a black screen. You don’t have something like WaylandEnable=false set in /etc/gdm/custom.conf do you?

Also, did you make sure that Authselect is configured before upgrading?^[2]

F43 Change Proposal: Wayland-only GNOME (self-contained) Change Proposals

Wayland-only GNOME This is a proposed Change for Fedora Linux. This document represents a proposed Change. As part of the Changes process, proposals are publicly announced in order to receive community feedback. This proposal will only be implemented if approved by the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee. Wiki Announced Summary Remove the GNOME X11 packages from the Fedora repositories. All users of the GNOME X11 session will be migrated to the GNOME Wayland session. Owne…

↩︎
GDM crashes after upgrade to Fedora 43 due to authselect migration Common Issues

Problem Some systems are experiencing GDM crashes, resulting in the desktop failing to load and the system becoming unusable (no console access, blank display) with the relevant error logged in journalctl: gdm-launch-environment][1722]: PAM unable to dlopen(/usr/lib64/security/pam_lastlog.so): Stack trace of thread 1701: ...snip... username systemd[1]: systemd[1]: systemd-coredump: Deactivated successfully. Cause The GDM crash is caused by the system using an old configuration (non-authselect,…

↩︎

amanti · June 13, 2026, 4:58pm

root@localhost:~# cat /etc/gdm/custom.conf
# GDM configuration storage

[daemon]
# Uncoment the line below to force the login screen to use Xorg
#WaylandEnable=false

AutomaticLoginEnable=False
AutomaticLogin=esegar

[security]

[xdmcp]

[chooser]

[debug]
# Uncomment the line below to turn on debugging
#Enable=true

root@localhost:~#

glb · June 13, 2026, 5:19pm

For that SELinux error, I would suggest running restorecon -v -r /var/lib/sss. It shouldn’t show any output if everything was OK. If it does show that the permissions were incorrect and needed to be revised, I would go ahead and run a full reset of all the SELinux permissions with fixfiles onboot just to be sure. You will have to reboot after running that last command and then it will take your system a little longer than normal to start because it will reset all the SELinux permissions on all the files.

amanti · June 13, 2026, 5:51pm

root@localhost:~#
root@localhost:~# restorecon -v -r /var/lib/sss
root@localhost:~#
root@localhost:~#

amanti · June 13, 2026, 6:12pm

Next, since I am on Fedora 42, I . . .

# ls -al /boot/efi
total 36
drwx------.  5 root root 16384 Dec 31  1969 .
dr-xr-xr-x.  8 root root  4096 Jul 29  2025 ..
drwx------. 12 root root  4096 Mar 22 12:42 b6e150d317d440a487c126d143bc071d
drwx------.  4 root root  4096 Mar 13  2025 EFI
-rwx------.  1 root root    34 Mar 20  2025 mach_kernel
drwx------.  3 root root  4096 Mar 20  2025 System

root@localhost:~# 
root@localhost:~# mv "/boot/efi/$(cat /etc/machine-id)" "/boot/efi/$(cat /etc/machine-id)_disabled"
root@localhost:~# 

root@localhost:~# ls -al /boot/efi
total 36
drwx------.  5 root root 16384 Dec 31  1969 .
dr-xr-xr-x.  8 root root  4096 Jul 29  2025 ..
drwx------. 12 root root  4096 Mar 22 12:42 b6e150d317d440a487c126d143bc071d_disabled
drwx------.  4 root root  4096 Mar 13  2025 EFI
-rwx------.  1 root root    34 Mar 20  2025 mach_kernel
drwx------.  3 root root  4096 Mar 20  2025 System
root@localhost:~#

Then . . .


root@localhost:~# dnf update ‘kernel*’
Updating and loading repositories:
 RPM Fusion for Fedora 42 - Nonfree - NVIDIA Driv 100% |   3.2 KiB/s |   5.6 KiB |  00m02s
 Fedora 42 - x86_64 - Updates                     100% |  20.0 KiB/s |  26.4 KiB |  00m01s
 RPM Fusion for Fedora 42 - Nonfree - Steam       100% |   5.9 KiB/s |   5.4 KiB |  00m01s
 Fedora 42 openh264 (From Cisco) - x86_64         100% |   1.3 KiB/s | 986.0   B |  00m01s
 Fedora 42 - x86_64                               100% |  58.1 KiB/s |  28.7 KiB |  00m00s
 google-chrome                                    100% |   7.2 KiB/s |   1.3 KiB |  00m00s
Repositories loaded.
Failed to resolve the transaction:
No match for argument: ‘kernel*’
You can try to add to command line:
  --skip-unavailable to skip unavailable pa

Although an SELinux Alert did NOT occur, adding a Fedora 42 kernel to Grub “appears” to have failed, but I’ll reboot and take a looksie at Grub.

( I’ll be back ).

The Grub menu items are { *6.8.9-100.fc38, Rescue, Memory Test, System Setup }.

francismontagnac · June 13, 2026, 7:31pm

Beware, this command fails because uses quotation marks around kernel* instead of
plain ascii quotes.

Try:

dnf update 'kernel*'

If dnf says Nothing to do, then:

dnf reinstall kernel-core

amanti · June 13, 2026, 7:38pm

Wow !

Insteed of copying and pasting the dnf command, I typed it in and now it is installing.

( I’ll be back )

Despite the SELinux Alert, I am fair certain it installed kernel-6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64

Other choices . . .

esegar@localhost:~$ 
esegar@localhost:~$ rpm -q kernel
kernel-6.8.9-100.fc38.x86_64
kernel-6.19.8-100.fc42.x86_64
kernel-6.19.14-108.fc42.x86_64
esegar@localhost:~$

Tried . . .

root@localhost:~# dnf reinstall 'kernel*-6.19.8-100.fc42.x86_64'
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
Failed to resolve the transaction:
Packages for argument 'kernel*-6.19.8-100.fc42.x86_64' installed, but not available.
root@localhost:~#

anothermindbomb · June 13, 2026, 7:50pm

For future info, you can also change the meaning of characters like * in this context by escaping them, as in dnf update kernel\*

Here the backslash means “interpret this as a literal asterisk”; don’t expand it as the shell would normally do to mean “all files in the current directory”. Doing it this way means you don’t need the single quotes at all.

francismontagnac · June 13, 2026, 8:23pm

This is the last fc42 kernel. Do you see it in grub ?

amanti · June 13, 2026, 8:47pm

Yes, but I forgot to capture the Terminal Window’s output when the SELinux Alert occurred.

It’s in the original ‘’ CLUE # 1 ‘’ . . .

# dnf update 'kernel*'
. . .
Transaction Summary:
 Installing:         5 packages
 Upgrading:          2 packages
 Replacing:          2 packages
 Removing:           5 packages

Total size of inbound packages is 198 MiB. Need to download 198 MiB.

After this operation, 5 MiB extra will be used (install 270 MiB, remove 265 MiB).

Is this ok [y/N]: y

Remember, I think my /boot/efi partition size is 200 MB.

The original clue [ repeated here above ] implies the kernel update is requiring ‘’ 270 MiB ‘’.

I don’t think that is Okay.

Your thoughts ?

anothermindbomb · June 13, 2026, 8:59pm

/boot/efi is a mount point and mine is 21 MB plus change.

However, kernels go into /boot and one would hope that your /boot is somewhat later than 270 MB.

└─➜ sudo du -h /boot                                                                                                                                                                     21:54 Sat 13-Jun
28K     /boot/loader/entries
32K     /boot/loader
2.0M    /boot/efi/EFI/BOOT
19M     /boot/efi/EFI/fedora
21M     /boot/efi/EFI
8.0K    /boot/efi/System/Library/CoreServices
12K     /boot/efi/System/Library
16K     /boot/efi/System
4.0K    /boot/efi/System Volume Information
21M     /boot/efi
16K     /boot/lost+found
2.3M    /boot/grub2/fonts
2.4M    /boot/grub2
533M    /boot

amanti · June 13, 2026, 9:05pm

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The Sequel to '' Fedora 42 Upgrade Black Screen ''

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