Issues with login and branding post update

MNT Pocket Reform
1

I updated all packages after a little while. I seem to be having a few issues and wondered if anyone could help. The branding such as the logo in the top left has gone. I tried to reinstall using

sudo apt-get --reinstall install reform-branding

However I recieve:

Package reform-branding is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source.

Any suggestions?The other problem is related to login. The boot sequence doesn’t run till I see the login screen, it now gets stuck and I have to Ctrl + C out to login to the terminal and enter sway to get a desktop enviroment.Where it gets stuck is

ab54dd6b-e9a7-4759-a744-4029b7c84152~1
ab54dd6b-e9a7-4759-a744-4029b7c84152~11920Ă—1792 255 KB

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

2

Can you run this please:

apt-cache policy reform-branding

If you do not have it installed (you can check in /var/log/apt/history.log how it got removed), you first have to enable the non-free repository in your sources.list and then you should be able to install it again. Or, alternatively, download it directly:

/usr/lib/apt/apt-helper download-file "https://deb.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/r/reform-branding/reform-branding_7_all.deb" reform-branding_7_all.deb SHA256:1143d139538bc72831300961c78fef3e2ae159dc800c97dc5806a2c7c5d8a8ce

Where does it get stuck? The kernel trace you show does not require any ctrl+c input from your side. What is your login manager? gdm or tuigreet?

3

reform-branding:

Installed: (none)
Candidate: (none)
Version table:

It lags at this exact point and doesn’t move on from this point unless I enter ctrl+c, it just hangs otherwise. And it is TUIGreet.

4

Aha! How do you know that you have to press ctrl+c to make it work? What happens with other keys. Try pressing Enter, for example.

Theory: tuigreet starts up fine but the kernel trace overwrites the interface, making it look to you as if tuigreet would not be there.

5

I pressed entered, it did take me to a login although with a few issues where it asked for the password first, then asking for it again second. It simply logs me into the CLI still, it still doesn’t go to the GUI interface as it previously did.

6

This is another indicator that my theory is correct. If tuigreet is indeed running (but completely overwritten by the kernel trace) and then you press enter, then you pressed enter while you were in the “username” field. If you press enter in the username field, then the next thing it asks you is the password which is what it did for you.

You have two problems.

  1. the kernel writes a trace to your framebuffer, destroying the tuigreet interface. This is a known issue System messages are printed over tuigreet · Issue #68 · apognu/tuigreet · GitHub and you solve it by either
    • not using tuigreet but a different login manager like gdm
    • reducing the kernel loglevel so much that not even traces like this one are shown
    • figuring out how to fix or avoid that trace from happening in the first place by fixing the out-of-bounds bug
  2. after logging in, you are dropped to a terminal instead of directly into sway and you solve that by either
    • not using tuigreet but a different login manager like gdm
    • editing /etc/greetd/config.toml – can you show your current version?
1 Like