Manjaro instability
#1
I have tried a few different versions of manjaro-arm for pinebook, all of which seem to have the same problem, whenever you boot, or the screen turns off for any reason, there is a very low chance that the screen will display anything (but the backlight may still be on). This typically happens after the initial `pacman -Syu`. I have never had any trouble with manjaro on other devices (x86_64), so I am unsure of what I am doing wrong. I really like using manjaro (mainly for its package manager, AUR and ease of use), but it just doesn't seem to work. This problem occurs on both on sd card and on emmc. I cannot enter a tty when it is in this state (or at least, I can't see them) and the only way out is to force it off and start it up again as many times as it takes to make sure it stays on.
#2
(10-17-2019, 07:28 AM)DAMO238 Wrote: I have tried a few different versions of manjaro-arm for pinebook, all of which seem to have the same problem, whenever you boot, or the screen turns off for any reason, there is a very low chance that the screen will display anything (but the backlight may still be on). This typically happens after the initial `pacman -Syu`. I have never had any trouble with manjaro on other devices (x86_64), so I am unsure of what I am doing wrong. I really like using manjaro (mainly for its package manager, AUR and ease of use), but it just doesn't seem to work. This problem occurs on both on sd card and on emmc. I cannot enter a tty when it is in this state (or at least, I can't see them) and the only way out is to force it off and start it up again as many times as it takes to make sure it stays on.

I also have this problem (running the i3 env).  I haven't much figured anything out yet, but I HAVE noticed that after I have the issue, if I see an underscore ( "_" ) in the top left of the screen after all of the boot messages/module loading happens, then I know everything will be fine.  I haven't yet determined if the machine successfully boots after the gfx issue, or if the boot process halts.
#3
I've had this issue as well. Judging from the Manjaro forums, it happens to more users than it doesn't. I have seen accounts of it happening on LXQT, KDE, but hadn't seen confirmation on i3 or XFCE, yet. (Now we know...)

In my experience, I often get the black screen as you describe with NOTHING on the screen, absolutely no terminal-like cursor. Once, out of frustration while rebooting to try and get to the login screen, I put it down without turning it off. When I came back to it several minutes later, I tapped the trackpad, the mouse moved, and there was the login! I haven't sat down and timed it yet, but after 10-15m, my black screen will be the full desktop. It has done this whether I left the lid open or closed. Now, if I don't get the login the first or second try, I just put it down and come back to it after a break.

I'm really hoping that once the hardware support is solidified in mainline, we'll see this behavior stop.
#4
(10-17-2019, 09:09 AM)tophneal Wrote: I've had this issue as well. Judging from the Manjaro forums, it happens to more users than it doesn't. I have seen accounts of it happening on LXQT, KDE, but hadn't seen confirmation on i3 or XFCE, yet. (Now we know...)

In my experience, I often get the black screen as you describe with NOTHING on the screen, absolutely no terminal-like cursor. Once, out of frustration while rebooting to try and get to the login screen, I put it down without turning it off. When I came back to it several minutes later, I tapped the trackpad, the mouse moved, and there was the login! I haven't sat down and timed it yet, but after 10-15m, my black screen will be the full desktop. It has done this whether I left the lid open or closed. Now, if I don't get the login the first or second try, I just put it down and come back to it after a break.

I'm really hoping that once the hardware support is solidified in mainline, we'll see this behavior stop.

It would also be worth checking to see if the HDMI output has anything when this behavior occurs.  I'll try to do that the next time it happens.
#5
(10-17-2019, 09:26 AM)binarian Wrote:
(10-17-2019, 09:09 AM)tophneal Wrote: I've had this issue as well. Judging from the Manjaro forums, it happens to more users than it doesn't. I have seen accounts of it happening on LXQT, KDE, but hadn't seen confirmation on i3 or XFCE, yet. (Now we know...)

In my experience, I often get the black screen as you describe with NOTHING on the screen, absolutely no terminal-like cursor. Once, out of frustration while rebooting to try and get to the login screen, I put it down without turning it off. When I came back to it several minutes later, I tapped the trackpad, the mouse moved, and there was the login! I haven't sat down and timed it yet, but after 10-15m, my black screen will be the full desktop. It has done this whether I left the lid open or closed. Now, if I don't get the login the first or second try, I just put it down and come back to it after a break.

I'm really hoping that once the hardware support is solidified in mainline, we'll see this behavior stop.

It would also be worth checking to see if the HDMI output has anything when this behavior occurs.  I'll try to do that the next time it happens.

Since mainline kept bringing in more and more of this hardware, I keep intending to dig out the HDMI adapter I stumbled into years ago (that will only work with this one device I own, HA) but keep forgetting or deprioritizing it. Let us know your results!
#6
(10-17-2019, 09:09 AM)tophneal Wrote: I've had this issue as well. Judging from the Manjaro forums, it happens to more users than it doesn't. I have seen accounts of it happening on LXQT, KDE, but hadn't seen confirmation on i3 or XFCE, yet. (Now we know...)

In my experience, I often get the black screen as you describe with NOTHING on the screen, absolutely no terminal-like cursor. Once, out of frustration while rebooting to try and get to the login screen, I put it down without turning it off. When I came back to it several minutes later, I tapped the trackpad, the mouse moved, and there was the login! I haven't sat down and timed it yet, but after 10-15m, my black screen will be the full desktop. It has done this whether I left the lid open or closed. Now, if I don't get the login the first or second try, I just put it down and come back to it after a break.

I'm really hoping that once the hardware support is solidified in mainline, we'll see this behavior stop.

You can add XFCE and i3 (although i3 seems to do it less) to the list then lol! I will try the leave it for 10-15 mins trick next time. I am both glad I'm not just being an idiot with my configuration but also annoyed that it's not something I can easily fix myself.
#7
(10-17-2019, 11:14 AM)DAMO238 Wrote:
(10-17-2019, 09:09 AM)tophneal Wrote: I've had this issue as well. Judging from the Manjaro forums, it happens to more users than it doesn't. I have seen accounts of it happening on LXQT, KDE, but hadn't seen confirmation on i3 or XFCE, yet. (Now we know...)

In my experience, I often get the black screen as you describe with NOTHING on the screen, absolutely no terminal-like cursor. Once, out of frustration while rebooting to try and get to the login screen, I put it down without turning it off. When I came back to it several minutes later, I tapped the trackpad, the mouse moved, and there was the login! I haven't sat down and timed it yet, but after 10-15m, my black screen will be the full desktop. It has done this whether I left the lid open or closed. Now, if I don't get the login the first or second try, I just put it down and come back to it after a break.

I'm really hoping that once the hardware support is solidified in mainline, we'll see this behavior stop.

You can add XFCE and i3 (although i3 seems to do it less) to the list then lol! I will try the leave it for 10-15 mins trick next time. I am both glad I'm not just being an idiot with my configuration but also annoyed that it's not something I can easily fix myself.

Noted, it must be a general Pinebook problem, like the LCD controller board is last in line for the kernel or something. But, yeah, you're not going crazy. I've had this issue on emmc and SD, pretty much right after setting up the system with no configuration tweaks. The only time it didn't do this was on the initial boot of the image.

I know it was brought up in the Manjaro forums several months ago, but if I recall correctly, Strit or whichever dev was working on the Pinebook images wasn't affected and could replicate the problem, and made no request for logs or diagnostic info from those of us that confirmed the issue.


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