Black screen after login for approx. 7 minutes

User Support
1

Hello community

Background:
I have been using Qubes for many years without problems. However, problems started a on my Acer Nitro 5 around the time when QOS 4.1.1 came out. Some of the updates must have caused problems on my system (slowness, freezing for some time when a qube was started). In order to resolve the problems, I thought a fresh installation of QOS 4.1.1 would fix the problems. However, I was unable to install QOS 4.1.1. During the installation process the screen started to go black and I only got the text installer. I tried several USB sticks, checked hash, etc. Nothing worked. So I gave up on QOS 4.1.1.

Now I reverted back to a fresh install of OQS 4.1.0. This version works fine with my laptop and I was able to use the graphical installer. I loaded the latest templates, updated them and now I have a clean system which is up to date.

However, there is one huge problem. After logging in I am getting a black screen, showing the cursor in the middle of the screen and a tiny grey square in the upper left corner of the screen. After approx 6-7 minutes of waiting I finally get a normal desktop and everything works fine after that. I don’t know what is causing this and I am not really an advanced log file surfer. I was not able to find a resolution for this problem.

Did anybody have the same problem and knows what is causing this?

Thx for any suggestions.

2

Are you using xfce?

I’m experiencing the same issue with xfce, the time from I enter the login to the desktop is ready just keeps growing.

You can try deleting ~/.cache/* it fixes it for me.

3

Yes, xfce. The standard Qubes installation.

You mean that after deleting it after a while it starts again?

I will try it.

4

Yeah, I noticed the problem when it took me 2-3min to load the desktop, then I deleted the files in .cache and it took 15-20 sec.

But the problem slowly returns, now I just delete .cache when I feel like it’s taking too long. Deleting the cache means I need to redo some desktop settings, so I don’t want to delete it every day/week.

5

Thank you for the suggestion, renehoj.

OK, I just renamed the sub directories in ~/.cache/ to some_old

Now the screen does not go black but I just get the background image of the Qubes OS desktop and only have to wait about 1.5 minutes instead of 7 minutes. This is an improvement of 5.5 minutes but also not very satisfactory. 1.5 minutes is still very long.

So better than nothing but I hope somebody has a real solution for this problem for us so the system works as designed.

Do you also have the Acer Nitro 5?

6

Really annoying. I am still having the same problem. It takes a long time until I see the desktop after login. Anybody having the same issue?

7

How many autostart qubes you have?

8

@enmus :

I have this behavior with standard setup after a fresh installation and not auto generating the personal, vault qubes during the installation.

9

What journalctl says at the time of login? Does it take usual time (short) to get to the login screen?