ive been meaning to post other problems etc but am still working on those issues. however now i cant even use my computer basically (sorta). it “looks” to me like there was a system update recently altho i dont have 100% proof of that. was installing a game and then the system restarted and i didnt think the game had anything to do with that. then the next day i noticed big changes on the desktop which i really appreciate btw! so i guess it was an update. if not i apologize, but still need help. but since this possible update ive been having a strange issue that only lets me work for about 20 minutes b4 i have to reboot.
i get a dark screen with error messages that i cant seem to get out of but they go away on their own and leave me at the login screen. it gives me about 5 seconds to try to enter my password but i cant seem to ever get it in time. and then the login text window is no longer accessible. there is a calendar at top center i can look at, and some basic options on the top right that allow me to reboot. but thats it.
as far as the errors they basically go like this :
failed to start TuneD - ppd.service - PPD-to-TuneD API Translation Daemon.
[Time] Timed out waiting for [hard drive]
[Depend] dependency failed for [hard drive]. i assume these are hard drives its referring to bc they are show as like mnt/[what appears to be a string of characters like i see for hard drives]. on the end of this message it shows something like “[hard drive].mount”.
i swear i havent made ANY changes to my hardware, nor made ANY changes to system settings lately. ive never seen any messages like this b4 using other distros so i have no idea whats going on here.
i notice there arent any other topics in the forum here about this subject which is why im not certain its from an update bc i figure then EVERYONE would be posting about it since they wouldnt be able to use their computers. therefore it seems to be just li’l ol’ me that is having this problem. but i dont see what i couldve possibly done to cause this! as i said i was in the middle of installing a game when it rebooted and now i have this issue. but the game now is properly installed and is actually running fine. and i havent done anything to cause this im pretty sure. been working fine up until a couple days ago. if this issue want caused by any update then i suppose the game HAS to somehow be the culprit.
i guess if there’s no easy solution i can just reinstall stillOS which isnt that hard to do thanks to Mr. Knauff et al!
a few other things i found after letting this error happen over and over until i was able to write down more stuff because it never stays long enough to get all the info :
the “hard drives” in the error messages are NOT any of my hard drives!? strange. both of the “drives” that it showed had 13.9GB Free and none of my drives have that. but more importantly, i checked the UUIDs for them and NONE of my drives match them! confusing to me. and why would two drives have the exact same amount of free space left? i even tried all my partitions but they dont match these two fake “drives”.
i had reported that i was able to work for 20min b4 having to reboot. but after doing it a bunch i realize its a different amount of time each time and varies quite a bit. that seems to point to something i am doing, yet i cant figure it out. when this error posts, im always doing something different from the last times so i dunno what im doing that could be triggering this.
if i go really quickly i actually CAN enter my password when it shows the login screen after the error. however it still kinda locks up and wont actually log in.
it seems to be the same exact two “hard drives” that show in the error messages each time. if you need the UUIDs i can provide….
this prolly isnt even related, but just in case : often when i type in my login password, Plymouth starts up! and i cant ever make it do it on my own, it just happens somehow. ive tried different key combinations but i dont know what triggers it.
Hello, sorry for the delayed reply, I have been moving.
Can you provide me full logs for the problem? This is either a hardware problem or a filesystem problem fr the hard drives issue. Try a reinstall with EXT4 as the filesystem? The TuneD problem is a known issue, I am working on a fix.
The login screen freeze error is fixed on the dev branch and will arrive in stable shortly, this was a bug with upstream AlmaLinux.
hey cameron! np man. ive done a ton of moving and its never easy or fun. i hope it all went well tho.
and now my turn to apologize for my delay: im sorry but i went thru something similar to you, where i got hit by a hurricane and was without power for 6 days and when power came back have had a ton of work to do to try get my home back in order. so this is the first chance ive had to respond to your request!
so i studied a bit on log files. then i found a few that i think will be appropriate for this issue im having. if they arent the right ones or whatever let me know but i think these will cover most stuff you would want. i got boot.log, messages, syslog. i wanted kern.log but strangely couldnt find it anywhere, even where its supposed to be in almalinux. i searched my whole system and it wasnt there. so i figured perhaps syslog would be similar? i hope this is the right stuff for you. i wasnt able to read them myself bc somehow i dont have the right permissions or ownership or something. i got more to learn there it seems. took me a while to even figure out how to copy them since a direct copy wouldnt work.
thanks for your help i sure appreciate it bc i really wanna get used to this OS and be able to use it. you’ve done a good thing here!
cheers!
edit: wait i cant upload the files! it seems to only accept pictures basically? so do i have to somehow open the files and copy the text and paste it in here? i’ll have to study more on this bc as i said i am unable to open them due to ownership/permission issues. it seems i cant put them in an archive and upload that either bc it wants only pictures/video.
so i will try to work this out but with everything going on it may take me a bit……..
forgot to address this advice. yeah i have made all my drives be EXT4 except one i made exFAT which was recommended for using between linux and windows. but the system drive is EXT4 for sure. thanks for the advice tho! and yes i suppose i could always just reinstall the OS to fix stuff. is prolly easier. would you rather i do that? im sure you are very busy and prolly dont wanna go thru my log files anyways, so maybe that is the best way forward to reinstall?
am working on getting you the logs still…….
Hi, and no worries about the delay. I just want to try and get this issue fixed so nobody else encounters this issue,
You didn’t miss kern.log. stillOS (AlmaLinux upstream) keeps the useful kernel and service messages in the systemd journal, so journalctl is what we need. You also shouldn’t have to copy any protected files from /var/log.
If possible, please don’t reinstall yet. Reinstalling could remove the logs that tell us what happened.
When it finishes, you’ll have a file named stillOS-logs.tar.gz in your Home folder.
The -b -1 part tells the system to collect logs from the previous boot, which should be the boot where the failure happened. If you see an error saying that the previous boot could not be found, tell me what it says.
Please glance through the files before sharing them and remove anything personal that you don’t want posted publicly. If the forum still refuses the archive, upload stillOS-logs.tar.gz to a file-sharing service you trust and post the share link here. You don’t need to paste the full logs into the forum post. You can also email them to cameron (at) stillhq.io, if you want to logs to be private (again, could be personal things in those logs).
Please include the approximate time when the problem occurred too. That will help me find the relevant part of the journal.
okay, the forum still will only accept pictues and video so i couldnt upload it here. so here’s a link for you to get it :
thanks for the heads up on the privacy issue here but i didnt see anything personal in these. the time was exactly 5:37pm (HST). had been running for about 45min when it got the error. (altho this running time varies each session.) hope this gives you what you need!
Incomplete or wrong Download URL.
Please check that you copied the link completely. If you’re still encountering this error, please contact the person who shared the link with you and ask them to resend it.
sorry, i dunno what happened there. they gave a link, it doesnt work, i tried it a couple more times but no go. so i just linked you the url addy for the page where you can get it and it seems to work for me. i edited the above link, so try it again! if it still doesnt work somehow then i will use the email option you gave……
unbelievable! i had tried it several times and it worked. but i just tried it now on my windows computer and it doesnt work. man, im so sorry cameron but i have no idea what is happening there. so check your email you mentioned earlier for a message from “helamonster at stillhq forums” and it has the archive attached. if this doesnt work then i will give up and just go work the salt mines in siberia bc thats about all im good for i guess! sheesh!
again it works on my stillos comp but again doesnt work on my windows comp. also i noticed the download was only available for 3 days and now only has a couple hours left. anyways i just wanted you to know i tried at least but have no idea why its acting so strangely. i guess i wont use limewire anymore. hope the email works. i tried mega first but didnt have time to make an account so i went with limewire. if you have any preferences on file upload sites, let me know since i dont know which ppl have dogpiled on lately bc i havent used them in years.
im noticing something else with this issue that might help you. it seems that if i use the web browser then it has a tendency to reboot but if if dont use it then it seems to have a tendency to keep going perhaps indefinitely. so perhaps the browser is part of the issue here. its just the default one that comes with stillOS, like gnome Web or something like that. and if the browser is downloading something it is even more likely to reboot as well. i might have to get you an application log for this. i cant really prove this at this point either, but it “seems” to be the case with the browser.
so ive continued to have trouble with the browser and the computer rebooting. especially when i initiate a download. figured i better try another browser. i installed brave and now no problems whatsoever! so i think the gnome web browser (epiphany?) is the issue here. i dunno if its something in the browser code itself or if its miscommunicating with the linux kernel or what. but im sorry to say i need help with finding an application log for this. i tried some stuff like finding ephiphany files, and using journalctl as you suggested, but no go. i will be happy to send you the appropriate log if you can help me at least to find them. at least we’re making progress here!
i know the first week or so of school is hectic so dont worry about responding right away, im patient. plus my comp isnt rebooting constantly now so i can wait.
Use a normal browser. Before your post, I’ve never heard of a DE providing their own browser. Use whatever you used on your previous OS and what you like.
Is the browser your only remaining problem?
Is this your only PC, or just a test PC to try this new OS?
I’m still working on the update that hopefully should fix Helamonster’s problems.
GNOME Web is the fallback browser if you don’t use a normal one. It’s not very good, we just needed a light browser embedded into the image just in case.
hey lurker, thanks for helping out. yes the browser seems to be the cause of the rebooting issue for some reason and i havent had any issues since changing to brave. well this is my only linux comp and i wish it to be my main since i wanna ditch windows. i do also have a windows lappy i use when i need to but dont really wanna use it.
thanks for both of your input on this browser situation. bc gnome web came with the OS i figured it must be the recommended one to use, but apparently not. so, hey i learned something!
glad there’s an update in the works!
cheers
Glad it works. Most distros come with Firefox, and that is more related to FOSS than anything else. Most distros don’t feel comfortable putting a proprietary browser in by default.
Browser technology seems incredibly complex and it also must be compliant with all websites. That is why most browsers (inc. Brave, MS Edge…) are based on Chromium. Firefox isn’t using Chromium, but the Mozilla foundation is sponsored by google. So, it all comes back to Google anyway. Very few exceptions.
Yes odd, that a Gnome base doesn’t work well with their own browser.
