Probably major bug in 25 10? sddm doesn't work, greeter exited with 9

well my pain in ass started eventually when I tried to boot up.

After booting, all I got was a black screen with no cursor. I figured something was wrong with the bootloader and started surfing the internet looking for a solution. But I was wrong.

Somehow, I magically managed to enter my password during the black screen and Kubuntu booted up fine.

Before that, I tried downloading drivers, messing with Grub, and messing with the BIOS. Nothing helped, just the opposite. When I decided to completely reinstall the system, the problem persisted, to my surprise.

Then I decided to try downloading version 25.4, and it worked fine right away.

I don’t even know what could cause it, but the fact that reinstalling does not help maybe says that it’s a bug or smth?

So, eventually I try to launch SDDM thru the konsole and get this:


luteo427@laptopROG-1:~$ sudo sddm
[sudo: authenticate] Password: 
[05:52:53.312] (II) DAEMON: Initializing...
[05:52:53.318] (II) DAEMON: Starting...
[05:52:53.318] (II) DAEMON: Logind interface found
[05:52:53.319] (II) DAEMON: Adding new display...
[05:52:53.319] (II) DAEMON: Loaded empty theme configuration
[05:52:53.320] (II) DAEMON: Xauthority path: "/run/sddm/xauth_PIgnyu"
[05:52:53.320] (II) DAEMON: Using VT 3
[05:52:53.320] (II) DAEMON: Display server starting...
[05:52:53.320] (II) DAEMON: Writing cookie to "/run/sddm/xauth_PIgnyu"
[05:52:53.320] (II) DAEMON: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -background none -seat seat0 vt3 -auth /run/sddm/xauth_PIgnyu -noreset -displayfd 15
[05:52:55.941] (II) DAEMON: Writing cookie to "/run/sddm/xauth_PIgnyu"
[05:52:55.942] (II) DAEMON: Setting default cursor
[05:52:55.990] (II) DAEMON: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
[05:52:56.080] (II) DAEMON: Display server started.
[05:52:56.080] (II) DAEMON: Socket server starting...
[05:52:56.080] (II) DAEMON: Socket server started.
[05:52:56.080] (II) DAEMON: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/kubuntu/theme.conf"
[05:52:56.080] (II) DAEMON: Greeter starting...
[05:52:56.096] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[05:52:56.096] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[05:52:56.096] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[05:52:56.448] (II) HELPER: Writing cookie to "/tmp/xauth_pmVZMX"
[05:52:56.448] (II) HELPER: Starting X11 session: "" "/usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/sddm-:2-kLkmUH --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/kubuntu"
[05:52:56.451] (II) DAEMON: Greeter session started successfully
[05:52:56.485] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Connect
[05:52:58.430] (II) DAEMON: Message received from greeter: Login
[05:52:58.430] (II) DAEMON: Reading from "/usr/share/wayland-sessions/plasma.desktop"
[05:52:58.433] (II) DAEMON: Session "/usr/share/wayland-sessions/plasma.desktop" selected, command: "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libexec/plasma-dbus-run-session-if-needed /usr/bin/startplasma-wayland" for VT 4
[05:52:58.447] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting...
[05:52:58.447] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating...
[05:52:58.493] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Preparing to converse...
[05:52:58.493] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Conversation with 1 messages
[05:52:58.537] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning.
[05:52:58.540] (II) DAEMON: Authentication for user  "luteo427"  successful
[05:52:58.540] (WW) HELPER: [PAM] Asked to close the session but it wasn't previously open
[05:52:58.541] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Ended.
[05:52:58.542] (II) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper exited successfully
[05:52:58.542] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[05:52:58.542] (WW) HELPER: Signal received: SIGTERM
[05:53:03.547] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopping...
[05:53:03.547] (II) DAEMON: Socket server stopped.
[05:53:03.547] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopping...
[05:53:03.622] (II) DAEMON: Display server stopped.
[05:53:03.622] (II) DAEMON: Running display stop script  QList("/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop")
[05:53:03.747] (II) DAEMON: Removing display SDDM::Display(0x55779e774030) ...
[05:53:03.747] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopping...
[05:53:03.747] (WW) DAEMON: Error from greeter session: "Process crashed"
[05:53:03.747] (WW) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper (--socket /tmp/sddm-auth-c4f50c46-61f3-49b4-8a17-5067141243d4 --id 2 --start /usr/bin/sddm-greeter-qt6 --socket /tmp/sddm-:2-kLkmUH --theme /usr/share/sddm/themes/kubuntu --user sddm --greeter) crashed (exit code 1)
[05:53:03.747] (WW) DAEMON: Error from greeter session: "Process crashed"
[05:53:03.747] (WW) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 9
[05:53:03.747] (II) DAEMON: Greeter stopped. SDDM::Auth::HelperExitStatus(9)

I couldn’t find any info that could help me.

Any ideas?

pc I do not have autoupdates and I didn’t do literally anything special when everything were okay. I used 25 10 for a week and it was fine, but yesterday something happened.

You start/restart sddm using systemd:

systemctl [stop/start/restart/status] sddm

From the same tty you can also try starting Plasma manually:

startplasma-wayland

or

startplasma-x11

as appropriate. Do not use sudo here!

You can also try updating with apt here as well, if you have a wired connection. Wifi would need to be started manually.

nevermind I changed to fedora and ALL of problems are gone

curse my friend for the kubuntu recommendation, bless him for the KDE recommendation

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