Trying to update to Fedora 43 and now the system isn’t booting (I’m complete noob)

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1

Hi! I have just (tried to) updated my Fedora from 42 to 43 but it doesn’t seem to be booting up. After the grub, the code/command line pops up with what seems to be the update thingies, but then it stops at ‘Failed to start system-update-utmp-runlevel.service’ and then it’s just stuck.

I’m sorry if it’s dumb but I’m a noob and not exactly sure what I’m doing. Any help appreciated.

I also tried to take a photo, but it was pretty hard since the thing only pops up for a second

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Again, any help is appreciated : )

Solved! //

Apparently the whole time there was a tiny nasty lil dependency for the vulkan-tools package called wine-dxvk which didn’t uninstall properly, but after removing that and following @francismontagnac’s advice to refresh the database it finally worked : )

Thanks to everyone who helped!!

3

Try to boot into an older kernel.
Press esc at startup, your ‘grub’ menu should show and select one of the earlier kernels.

Let us know if that works.

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4

Hi! Tried booting into the other fedoras 42 and they all give the same error as above. Tried booting into fedora 40 and it put me into emergency mode, after which it said

‘Cannot open access to console, the root account is locked.

See sulogin(8) man page for more details.’

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5

Boot into the latest Fedora kernel.
When it hangs, can you press Ctrl+Alt+F3 to go to a new console and log in?

If you can, we should be able to rescue the system.

If you get in, run journalctl -b and post the output here.

6

Ok so I’ve been trying to do that, but I have been having trouble remembering my login… (since I don’t usually need it)

Is there any way to work with that or any way to retrieve the username? Maybe from a live system or something else?

7

Boot into a live system and look at the home partition of your on-disk install. If your username is rikaxmai, then directory /home/rikaxmai will exist.

If you’ve also forgotten the password, follow these instructions to change it from the live USB. Those refer to the root password, but you can use the same procedure to change a user password. Just replace passwd with passwd rikaxmai (or whatever your username is).

Edit - the above instructions don’t cover btrfs installs. If you do need to change your password, and you installed using btrfs (the default), let us know.

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8

Ok! I got in and with some help I managed to get this output from the journalctl -b https://0x0.st/PqtU.txt

9

You can post that here, using the ‘preformatted text’ (ctrl+e) </> button in the top of the edit box.
It’s good so others can find the same error here, and so people don’t have to go to external sites.

I have to log-off for the night - this link here might have some tips for you boot hangs at 'Started Update UTMP about System Runlevel Changes.' :: IT'S FOSS

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10

Hello, I am Ace’s nerd friend. I tried to paste the output in, but it was too large for the forum. It is also probably best to keep it on the pastebin as it may or may not contain sensitive info. My apologies.

11

I note from quick look at the pastebin output that plymouthd is dumping core:

Jan 31 16:47:18 KittyTOP systemd-coredump[1291]: Process 629 (plymouthd) of user 0 dumped core.
                                                 
                                                 Module libbz2.so.1 from rpm bzip2-1.0.8-21.fc43.x86_64
                                                 Module libfreetype.so.6 from rpm freetype-2.13.3-3.fc43.x86_64
                                                 Stack trace of thread 629:
                                                 #0  0x00007faa85cd8725 n/a (/lib64/libply-splash-graphics.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0x6725)
                                                 #1  0x00007faa85ceca7f n/a (/lib64/plymouth/two-step.so (deleted) + 0x7a7f)
                                                 #2  0x00007faa88420209 n/a (/lib64/libply-splash-core.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0xb209)
                                                 #3  0x0000560fab47065c n/a (/bin/plymouthd (deleted) + 0x1265c)
                                                 #4  0x00007faa8842136d n/a (/lib64/libply-splash-core.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0xc36d)
                                                 #5  0x00007faa88423167 n/a (/lib64/libply-splash-core.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0xe167)
                                                 #6  0x00007faa88423ace n/a (/lib64/libply-splash-core.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0xeace)
                                                 #7  0x00007faa8842590b n/a (/lib64/libply-splash-core.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0x1090b)
                                                 #8  0x00007faa8842713f n/a (/lib64/libply-splash-core.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0x1213f)
                                                 #9  0x00007faa8845563d n/a (/lib64/libply.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0xc63d)
                                                 #10 0x00007faa88455a88 n/a (/lib64/libply.so.5.0.0 (deleted) + 0xca88)
                                                 #11 0x0000560fab460a5f n/a (/bin/plymouthd (deleted) + 0x2a5f)
                                                 #12 0x00007faa88227575 n/a (/lib64/libc.so.6 (deleted) + 0x3575)
                                                 #13 0x00007faa88227628 n/a (/lib64/libc.so.6 (deleted) + 0x3628)
                                                 #14 0x0000560fab462675 n/a (/bin/plymouthd (deleted) + 0x4675)
                                                 ELF object binary architecture: AMD x86-64

followed by gnome-shell repeated dumping core.

1 Like
12

Try to boot with modifying the kernel parameters:

  • suppress rhgb and quiet prevent plymouth to start
  • add systemd.debug_shell gives a root shell on tty9 Ctrl-Alt-F9
  • add systemd.unit=multi-user.target prevent gnome-shell to start

If you get the shell on tty9, debug with:

  • systemctl --failed
  • journalctl
  • dnf repoquery --duplicates
  • rpm -Va
  • …
1 Like
13

What exactly do you mean when you say ‘suppress’?

14

When the machine starts, press eventually the Escape key.
You will then have a menu (the grub menu) allowing you to choose what kernel to boot and
also with what parameters.
On the current kernel, press the e key to edit this boot.
Go to the vmlinuz line (with the arrow keys)
Suppress the parameters: rhgb and quiet
Add: systemd.debug_shell systemd.unit=multi-user.target
Press at the same time the Ctrl and x keys to continue booting

2 Likes
15

This changes of the kernel parameters is only a way to get a shell without being bothered
by gnome-shell looping trying to setup the graphical session.

Re-reading the previous posts, I see that you managed to get a shell on TTY3.

I suggest to verify first that the upgrade has properly finished. If not fix it.

dnf --dump-variables output should be:

    ======== Variables: ========
    arch = x86_64
    basearch = x86_64
    releasever = 43
    releasever_major = 43

The releasever should not be 42.

dnf check output should be empty, should not indicate duplicates.

dnf repolist should contain:

    repo id                        repo name                     
    fedora                         Fedora 43 - x86_64            
    updates                        Fedora 43 - x86_64 - Updates

Otherwise try to fix with:

sudo dnf distro-sync \
    --refresh \
    --releasever=43 \
    --allowerasing \
    --skip-broken \
    --setopt=protected_packages=

See: Repos seem to all be out of date after upgrading to 43 - #4 by vgaetera

1 Like
16

Hi! I tried to do this but unfortunately I get the same result (being stuck on the black screen)

I also get this error (sorry for the blurry photo, couldn’t manage to get a better one)

but basically yeah, it couldn’t find the systemd.debug_shell

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17

Remove the systemd.debug_shell and try again; it’s almost certainly disabled on your machine as anyone who can turn your machine on can add that parameter and get straight into the box without any passwords and so on. It’s useful for debugging but absolutely lethal to security, and thus is probably disabled. I’ve not checked but I’d be staggered if it works (and as we can see, yours is disabled anyway!).

Great idea to use it, but I expect it’ll be scuppered by security.

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