Strange behaviour with Plymouth at startup

I have PCLinuxOS Debian installed on two different partitions, one with Cinnamon and one with KDE. This only happens to me with Cinnamon.

Following a few updates, (not from the initial installation,) starting from the iso dated 21 May 2024, what happens is that all seems normal until the computer reaches the login screen. Then, after a few seconds, it goes back to the Plymouth screen and the progress bar starts over. But it never goes anywhere, and is not broken by ESC. But you can switch between it and the Login screen with CTRL-ALT-F1 (Plymouth) and CTRL-ALT-F7 (login). If you switch to the login screen, then login as normal, everything works OK. But why?

I note that there is a new iso dated 1 June 2024 which I will download and use to re-install. We'll see what happens.

davecs wrote:I have PCLinuxOS Debian installed on two different partitions, one with Cinnamon and one with KDE. This only happens to me with Cinnamon.

Following a few updates, (not from the initial installation,) starting from the iso dated 21 May 2024, what happens is that all seems normal until the computer reaches the login screen. Then, after a few seconds, it goes back to the Plymouth screen and the progress bar starts over. But it never goes anywhere, and is not broken by ESC. But you can switch between it and the Login screen with CTRL-ALT-F1 (Plymouth) and CTRL-ALT-F7 (login). If you switch to the login screen, then login as normal, everything works OK. But why?

I note that there is a new iso dated 1 June 2024 which I will download and use to re-install. We'll see what happens.

Use the Login Setting app provided in the Control Center or menu and set to autologin and then set your preferences again. This will reset  /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf if you have it buggered up in some way?

Upgreyed wrote:
Use the Login Setting app provided in the Control Center or menu and set to autologin and then set your preferences again. This will reset  /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf if you have it buggered up in some way?

Too late. I've re-installed and fully updated. Working OK now.

Upgreyed wrote:
Use the Login Setting app provided in the Control Center or menu and set to autologin and then set your preferences again. This will reset  /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf if you have it buggered up in some way?

Spoke too soon...

After a couple of boots it started doing it again on the new installation. It has nothing to do with autologin, that's for sure. I set the system to autologin, and rebooted. Although it came straight to my desktop, within a few seconds it had switched to a Plymouth desktop on CTRL-ALT-F1 as before. I turned off autologin, and the only difference was that it did the switch before I had time to log in, but either way, that's what it does.

I am just running Grub2Splash to see whether doing something to Plymouth fixes it...

Aaaannnnddddd....

Nope. Still going back to Plymouth on CTRL-ALT-F1 screen, after login screen.

To be honest, I'm becoming less keen on Cinnamon by the hour. I might put something else on the partition I've been running it on. Nice graphics are no substitute for user-friendliness. Until then, I'm going to focus on the partition I set up with PCLOS Debian KDE.

davecs wrote:Aaaannnnddddd....

Nope. Still going back to Plymouth on CTRL-ALT-F1 screen, after login screen.

To be honest, I'm becoming less keen on Cinnamon by the hour. I might put something else on the partition I've been running it on. Nice graphics are no substitute for user-friendliness. Until then, I'm going to focus on the partition I set up with PCLOS Debian KDE.

I can't reproduce it here on Cinnamon or any other. Shutdown/restart multiple times. This is the first I have heard of it. Must be your setup or something else?
I don't see it so I can't fix it? Look at /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and see if your username is showing any abnormalities like your username is set twice perhaps?

Upgreyed wrote:
I can't reproduce it here on Cinnamon or any other. Shutdown/restart multiple times. This is the first I have heard of it. Must be your setup or something else?
I don't see it so I can't fix it? Look at /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf and see if your username is showing any abnormalities like your username is set twice perhaps?

No, nothing at all in lightdm.conf. The only difference between the one in cinnamon and the one in kde is that it says "cinnamon" in two settings instead of "plasma".

I also can't see how it can have anything to do with lightdm. It's like plymouth is being run twice, the second time after a delay, and I suspect that something I installed has messed about with the init-scripts. Can you guide me as to what part of the init scripts may contain the instruction to do that?

davecs wrote:
I also can't see how it can have anything to do with lightdm. It's like plymouth is being run twice, the second time after a delay, and I suspect that something I installed has messed about with the init-scripts. Can you guide me as to what part of the init scripts may contain the instruction to do that?

Apparently something you installed has jacked up plymouth?  /etc/init.d/plymouth  Did you try and reinstall plymouth to see if something is conflicting? I don't what is wrong at this point? I don't know what you installed?

OK this is what has happened so far.

I re-installed plymouth and libplymouth5. Rebooted. Exactly the same thing happened.

I re-installed initscripts. Rebooted. Exactly the same thing happened.

For some reason, pushing ESC when on this "extra" plymouth screen doesn't get you to the CTRL-ALT-F1 terminal, but CTRL-ALT-ESC does. There were a few errors relating to some udev rules that the Brother printer driver had installed. I rebooted to the KDE PCLOS Debian partition, and had a look in the CTRL-ALT-F1 screen there for comparison. The last line, which didn't appear in the Cinnamon version, was as follows:

startpar: service(s) returned failure: nmbd smbd plymouth ... failed!

This suggests to me that the scripts tried to make plymouth run again, but failed. (Because plymouth had already run and finished!) nmbd relates to Net Bios Name Server, and smbd relates to Samba.

davecs wrote:

startpar: service(s) returned failure: nmbd smbd plymouth ... failed!

This suggests to me that the scripts tried to make plymouth run again, but failed. (Because plymouth had already run and finished!) nmbd relates to Net Bios Name Server, and smbd relates to Samba.

What happens if you reinstall startpar and reboot? Samba seems to relate to the problem it seems. I don't have samba installed at the moment.

I've tried a few tests. Basically I think the initscripts contain errors. I did try re-installing startpar but to no avail. Samba is not the problem. I have MX Linux on another partition, and looking at the CTRL-ALT-F1 screen, you also get a similar startpar error, but without plymouth, just the nmbd and smbd errors. And the boot up is normal. Basically the scripts are trying to run plymouth twice, but something is stopping this from happening in the KDE version.

Here's another issue affecting both the KDE and Cinnamon versions of PCLOS Debian:

When you get to the login screen, press CTRL-ALT-F1. Do a command line login from there. What happens when I do it, is that, instead of being logged into a text screen, I get logged into a graphics screen. If I then try to log out from that, it just logs into it again. So there's obviously an error. This doesn't happen in Tex's PCLOS nor in MXLinux which both act correctly.

I wish I understood how to write/edit/interpret init scripts, I'd try to help. All I can do is try to test things. I will keep at least one PCLOS Debian partition so I can test what you do. But I won't be able to use it as a daily driver.

What happens when you CTRL-ALT-F1 then CTRL-ALT-F5

Upgreyed wrote:What happens when you CTRL-ALT-F1 then CTRL-ALT-F5

CTRL-ALT-F5 just leads to another text terminal. It behaves exactly as it should. Log in there and you log in to a text terminal. Only terminal 1 behaves as I've described.

Another strange thing. The errors reported in the CTRL-ALT-F1 screen in the KDE version show the program as "startpar".  But in the Cinnamon version, it's reported as "tartpar". Something very weird!

What init system are we using? I get no response to init 3 (which ought to switch off graphics screens and enable only text screens) and init 5 (which ought to start the graphics system). Is this due to the way systemd has been replaced from the Debian base? Maybe take a look at how MX Linux achieves this, though that does have dual options, with and without systemd.

davecs wrote:Another strange thing. The errors reported in the CTRL-ALT-F1 screen in the KDE version show the program as "startpar".  But in the Cinnamon version, it's reported as "tartpar". Something very weird!

What init system are we using? I get no response to init 3 (which ought to switch off graphics screens and enable only text screens) and init 5 (which ought to start the graphics system). Is this due to the way systemd has been replaced from the Debian base? Maybe take a look at how MX Linux achieves this, though that does have dual options, with and without systemd.

Fixed in cinnamon, mate, budgie, xfce, plasma-mini and plasma in all download locations.

Upgreyed wrote:
Fixed in cinnamon, mate, budgie, xfce, plasma-mini and plasma in all download locations
.

OK I will download Cinnamon and see how I get on with it. Will do KDE again later.

OK this is what happened.

1. Running live

Situation unchanged in that if you switch to the CTRL-ALT-F1 page, and log in as root (password root), it automatically fires up a graphics screen on that terminal. If you do that on CTRL-ALT-F2 to F6, it logs in as a root screen and works correctly. CTRL-ALT-F7 will display the guest desktop inviting you to install.

If you are in CTRL-ALT-F2 to F6, log in, and type init 3, it logs out the CTRL-ALT-F1 screen, but the desktop on CTRL-ALT-F7 is still there and working. It has not been stopped by the init 3 command. It should have been stopped!

If you are in CTRL-ALT-F2 to F6, log in, and type init 5, it fires up the graphics screen on CTRL-ALT-F1. However it doesn't necessarily get there, it gets stuck in a plymouth screen. It has no effect on CTRL-ALT-F7.

I am wondering whether Debian (as do some distros) uses CTRL-ALT-F1 as the graphics screen rather than F7 or F8. I suspect that, if that's the case, the link to it hasn't been completely broken, and that is at the root of the problems I've had.

I should add, after installing, there wasn't much difference. Obviously I now had a different root password, and a user-level login. But other than that, much the same things happened.

Basically, I think that once this problem has been corrected, the initial problem I had that started this whole thread, wouldn't have happened.

I've done some tests on 4 installed systems which do not have systemd (or in one case, make it optional).

PCLinuxOS Tex puts the graphics screens on tty8 and tty9. If you log into a root konsole on tty2, and type init 3, the graphics screens are closed down. If you then type init 5, the graphics system is restarted on tty8. This is exactly what should happen. Logging in to a konsole on tty1 stays as a text console.

MXLinux, booting without systemd, puts the graphics screens on tty7 and tty8. If you log into a root konsole on tty2, and type init 3, there are a couple of messages, but nothing actually happens. Your graphics screen on tty7 is not affected! However, you can force it to stop by then typing killall lightdm. Once the graphics system is stopped, typing init 5 restores it correctly, on tty7. Logging in to a konsole on tty1 stays as a text console.

PCLOS Debian Plasma, installed from the iso dated 14 May 2024, puts graphics screens on tty7 and tty8. If you log into a root konsole on tty2, and type init 3 nothing happens. If you then type in init 5, again, nothing happens. However, if you make a text login on tty1, it opens a graphics screen there as well. Trying to log out from this graphics screen results in the graphics screen exiting and then restarting with the same user.

PCLOS Debian Cinnamon, installed from the iso dated 3 June 2024, puts graphics screens on tty7 and tty8. If you log into a root konsole on tty2, and type init 3, nothing happens. If you then type in init 5, it runs plymouth in tty1, which never completes so there's no way to escape from it. You can switch back to the proper graphics console in tty7, using the CTRL-ALT-F7 keys, and use that, though.

I think I may have worked out the problem which I originally started this thread. It won't correct the strange behaviour with the tty1 console going to a graphics screen when you boot into it, but I believe that it will stop the problem I was having with Plymouth. Firstly I deleted the "Plymouth" link from /etc/rc5.d/ — when I started, plymouth still ran. However, when I shut down or rebooted, it did not. So I made the link again, but changed the "S" to a "K" and put it in /etc/rc0.d/ and /etc/rc6.d/ (but not /etc/rc5.d/). Now I get the shutting down/rebooting plymouth screen as well.

The upshot is that if I go into a root console and type init 5, I don't get plymouth running in tty1.

So that's my issue more or less resolved, though I do think we still need to know why tty1 runs as a graphic screen when you log into it. It shouldn't.

I've now installed the KDE version dated 7th June 2024 and the Plymouth problem seems to be resolved. There is no indication on tty1 that it attempts to run plymouth a second time when it starts. If I open a text screen on tty2, and type init 5, it does try to run plymouth but can't. Everything ought to be fine during normal use, but I will update to the latest Cinnamon over the next few days. Hopefully, I'll get the same results with that and mark this as solved. The related problem with the tty1 screen still booting up to a graphics screen is still a thing though. If it affects both KDE and Cinnamon, and may affect other variants so I'll post it somewhere else.