admin:linux:troubleshooting

Troubleshooting Linux Problems

journal

The journal is where systems with the systemd init system store their logfiles. journalctl can show most of the errors occuring in the system.

SysRq

see also: Linux Kernel documentation on SysRq 

# enable all SysRq features
echo 1 | sudo tee /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq > /dev/null
2 0x2 enable control of console logging level
4 0x4 enable control of keyboard (SAK, unraw)
8 0x8 enable debugging dumps of processes etc.
16 0x10 enable sync command
32 0x20 enable remount read-only
64 0x40 enable signalling of processes (term, kill, oom-kill)
128 0x80 allow reboot/poweroff
256 0x100 allow nicing of all RT tasks

solutions to common problems

CD burning doesn't work with BD burners

Try disabling Stream Recording, it's enabled by default in xfburn for all Blu-Ray writers and will kill your CDs. Only enable it with BDs.

encryption-related tasks take a long time

Install haveged for more entropy generation.

Plank panel doesn't show active applications

If you start the panel in the terminal the following error message can occur: g_dbus_proxy_set_default_timeout: assertion 'G_IS_DBUS_PROXY (proxy)' failed

Solve it by starting plank via dbus-launch plank.

changing permissions not allowed for user root

Immutable bit might be set. 

chattr -i

D-Bus broker doesn't start properly

Possible error messages: 

systemd[11487]: dbus-broker.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
systemd[11487]: dbus-broker.service: Failed with result 'protocol'.
systemd[11487]: Failed to start D-Bus User Message Bus.
gnome-keyring-daemon[11514]: couldn't connect to dbus session bus: Could not connect: Connection refused
dbus-broker-launch[1170]: Activation request for 'org.a11y.atspi.Registry' failed.
gkr-pam: unable to locate daemon control file
dbus-broker-launch[1290]: Activation request for 'org.a11y.atspi.Registry' failed.
dbus-broker-launch[1582]: Activation request for 'org.a11y.atspi.Registry' failed.

Solve with enabling D-Bus for the user: 

systemctl --user enable dbus-daemon.service

GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.portal.Error.Failed

Errors may include: 

xdg-desktop-portal[2779]: Failed to create secret proxy
xdg-desktop-portal[2779]: Failed to get application states: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.portal.Error.Failed: Could not get window list

Solution: Remove xdg-desktop-portal(-gtk) packages.

AT-SPI related errors

bamfdaemon[5470]: AT-SPI: Could not obtain desktop path or name
dbus-broker-launch[5425]: Activation request for 'org.a11y.atspi.Registry' failed.
bamfdaemon[5470]: atk-bridge: GetRegisteredEvents returned message with unknown signature
bamfdaemon[5470]: atk-bridge: get_device_events_reply: unknown signature
dbus-broker-launch[5425]: Activation request for 'org.a11y.atspi.Registry' failed.

Solution: 

rm /etc/xdg/autostart/at-spi-dbus-bus.desktop

Drivers / Hardware

AMD RX Vega 56/64

doesn't boot on Arch Linux

downgrade linux-firmware to version 20181218.0f22c85-1

  • Last modified: 2020-04-11 14:28