Boot hang: process /bin/plymouth could not be executed

Juan Lucas · 10-04-2016, 01:43 PM

Hello there!

My problem is the following: After my last update (pacman -Syu) my system hangs on boot, and I can't figure out the cause (it's driving me crazy, really)

Searching on the web I found out that this could be caused by a bad fstab file, but this doesn't appear to be the case.

The distro I'm using is Manjaro linux (it is based on Arch) and my Systemd version is 231

This is what journalctl -xb had to say about it

Code:

Oct 04 11:45:02 manjarobox systemd[350]: rescue.service: Faied at step EXEC spawning /bin/plymouth: No such file or directory
-Subject: Process /bin/plymouth could not be executed
-Defined-by: systemd
-Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel
-
-The process /bin/plymouth could not be executed and failed
-
-The error number returned by this process is 2

This is the output of ls -l /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants

Code:

total 0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 38 Dec 22  2015 cronie.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/cronie.service
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 42 Dec 27  2015 lm_sensors.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/lm_sensors.service
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 44 Dec 22  2015 ModemManager.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/ModemManager.service
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 46 Dec 22  2015 NetworkManager.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 40 Dec 22  2015 remote-fs.target -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/remote-fs.target
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Dec 22  2015 tlp.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/tlp.service
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 35 Jan 13  2016 ufw.service -> /usr/lib/systemd/system/ufw.service

And my /etc/fstab file looks like this:

Code:

#
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
#
# <file system> <dir>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# DEVICE DETAILS: /dev/sda1 UUID=c52d9ae9-48a8-487c-931b-77deedf8e242 LABEL=DskA_Linux
# DEVICE DETAILS: /dev/sda5 UUID=170E967E185647C6 LABEL=DskD_Files
# DEVICE DETAILS: /dev/sda6 UUID=eeaa09fa-4ace-4e5a-8fef-170a18e41940 LABEL=DskE_Swap
UUID=c52d9ae9-48a8-487c-931b-77deedf8e242 / ext4 defaults 0 1
#UUID=170E967E185647C6 /mnt/Files ntfs-3g defaults 0 1
#UUID=eeaa09fa-4ace-4e5a-8fef-170a18e41940 swap swap defaults 0 0

Also, I have never installed plymouth, nor do I intend to, if I can help it.

What can I do to solve this? :S

Thanks in advance

c0wb0y · 10-04-2016, 01:57 PM

Try locating all plymouth unit files and if found, disable any mention of it
systemctl list-unit-files | grep plymouth

Juan Lucas · 10-04-2016, 02:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by c0wb0y

Try locating all plymouth unit files and if found, disable any mention of it
systemctl list-unit-files | grep plymouth

Hi!

I tried that, but systemctl list-unit-files | grep plymouth returns no output :S :S

c0wb0y · 10-04-2016, 02:23 PM

I don't install and use plymouth so I'm just shooting in the dark here. Anyhow, it could be possible to skip fancy framebuffer by adding 'nomodeset' to grub so you can skip plymouth thing?

Juan Lucas · 10-04-2016, 06:16 PM

That's the problem; I've never even installed plymouth to begin with :O :S

Fred Caro · 10-04-2016, 07:19 PM

Have you edited your fstab?

Does it boot from super-grub cd?

Fred.

Juan Lucas · 10-04-2016, 08:06 PM

I have tikered a bit with my fstab; I commented out the lines that weren't strictly necessary with #

The system does boot, without the need of super-grub cd. It just gets hanged on mid boot :'(

Fred Caro · 10-08-2016, 08:49 PM

But you need to be able to login.

If you have access to fstab you are logged in.

If it hangs in mid boot, then you don't have access to a running system. Super-grub might give you access to that but you would have to adjust the installation to not need super-grub each time you booted the os.

Fred.

Fred Caro · 10-08-2016, 09:19 PM

But you need to be able to login.

If you have access to fstab you are logged in.

If it hangs in mid boot, then you don't have access to a running system. Super-grub might give you access to that but you would have to adjust the installation to not need super-grub each time you booted the os.

Fred.

ondoho · 10-10-2016, 10:40 AM

you're always saying it "hangs mid-boot" - but what exactly does it mean?
what do you see?
how far does it get?
can you switch to another tty and log in?
can you boot into recovery mode?

Juan Lucas · 10-12-2016, 06:40 PM

I guess I should have been more specific. I can boot into recovery mode. Otherwise, I've been using chroot from a live medium.

c0wb0y · 10-12-2016, 07:55 PM

Did you try disabling kms at grub (nomodeset=true)?

Can you please post output of:

ls -l /bin/plymouth*
cat /proc/cmdline

Below is an output of plymouth crap on my CentOS:

Code:

[root@centOS ~]# systemctl list-unit-files | grep plymouth
systemd-ask-password-plymouth.path          static  
plymouth-halt.service                       disabled
plymouth-kexec.service                      disabled
plymouth-poweroff.service                   disabled
plymouth-quit-wait.service                  disabled
plymouth-quit.service                       disabled
plymouth-read-write.service                 disabled
plymouth-reboot.service                     disabled
plymouth-start.service                      disabled
plymouth-switch-root.service                static  
systemd-ask-password-plymouth.service       static

Juan Lucas · 10-12-2016, 09:21 PM

Actually, I've just reinstalled my distro :P (It works fine now =) )