Updates freezing M2-Max Mac Studio

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1

Hi good people. I just installed Asahi and Fedora with KDE on my Mac Studio (M2 Max) yesterday. Very excited to test it out. However, after a successful install, I tried to install software updates, and every time I do this, my computer freezes when it gets to the login screen. Sometimes it just boots into a completely black screen. Other times it shows what looks like a screenshot of the login screen. It’s strange that it looks slightly different each time. Once, it showed the correct time on the clock. Another time, the time was 30 minutes before, and the “screenshot”-like screen was lower rez, with black bands around the edges of the screen.

Can anybody help me figure out how to get this system running again?

More details about what specifically happened:

Installation went very smoothly, and it was running great. However, I saw that there were 13 software updates that were needed, and I ran the updater (GUI). The first time I tried it, I clicked “apply updates and restart,” and it restarted but didn’t update. It came back and said I still needed 13 updates. Then, I tried letting it restart itself, and after the Uboot screen (which always takes quite a long time, BTW — at least a minute), for a few seconds it showed “Fedora” at the bottom with a progress spinner above it, and then the screen went black. My monitor did not go into standby mode, so it was receiving a signal. That signal, however, was just a black screen. I was able to hard restart and login again. This happened several times last night. Basically: boot up; login without issue; attempt to install updates; reboot into frozen black screen; hard reboot; login without issue; etc. I tried using a different monitor, in case that had something to do with it. I tried unplugging external hard drives. Nothing worked. Eventually, I shut everything down.

This morning, I booted up without issue. Then I tried to install the updates (it still said I needed 13 System Updates). Again I got the black screen. Hard reboot. This time I got as far as the login screen before things froze. Again, hard reboot. Again, the login screen, though this time it was a low-rez version. Again, hard reboot. Black screen. I have been unable to login to the machine at all today.

Each time, it goes through Uboot, then I get the progress spinner screen for a couple of seconds, and then I either get a black screen or a frozen login screen, and can go no further.

Someone please help. Otherwise I’ll have to give up on this experiment, which would really bum me out.

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So, a lot of interwebs searching seems to indicate that this is, or was, a known issue on Fedora 42 with Plasma, even on x86. I’m fairly new to Linux, but I have found that if I use the command line to install system updates, the computer is much less likely to reboot into this black screen. I can’t say for sure if that’s coincidence or not, but I’m gonna go with it. Also, after the latest Plasma 6.5 update, this hasn’t happened to me again. Caveat: I finally have pretty much all the software I need installed, so I’m not rebooting the machine nearly as often, so I have fewer data points. But, that’s where I’m at. Fingers crossed that the issue has been resolved. At least as long as I don’t reboot, this thing runs quick and solid, and I’m really glad I made this move from Mac to Fedora.

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I just wanted to mention a couple things to try : (you might’ve already tried these, but I am also moderately new to linux and only just learnt these)

  1. Does pressing esc work while frozen? Pressing esc while the fedora logo is on will show you what commands are running, see if something is wrong there.
  2. Have you tried switching to the tty when its frozen? That will give you a terminal which would help you diagnose the issue further. I am not 100% sure but I think it is ctrl+option (alt) + F3 to go into tty and ctrl+option(alt)+F2 to go back into gui mode. (you might have to press the fn key as well if its there)
    If you can get a terminal, you can restart the window manager by doing: sudo systemctl restart sddm

I know you said it hasn’t happened so far on Plasma 6.5 which is great to hear, but just in case.

(side note: This is most likely an issue with Plasma since you are able to get to the login screen)

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I will also mention that you can still use the gui to update without needing to restart like the terminal. Just go to Software updates → apply system updates → immediately