Failed to reboot after sudo pacman -syu, cannot restore snapshot?

[aforre1120]

Hi,

earlier today i was encountering an application crashing, therefore doing the first logical and lazy step of troubleshooting: sudo pacman -syu, something i uhh… don’t do enough. Dont ask when the last full systemupgrade i did was, you dont wanna know.

Also i enountered an issue where my disk was full, so i cleaned up a few things, tried again, this time it errored out, saying it was unable to overwrite certain files related to mkinitcpio. I solved this with an --overwrite option, updating just mkinitcpio, mdadm and lvm2. After this, i was still encountering issues where my disk was “full” despite reading 5gb free. Figured i’d reboot.

please don’t call me stupid for executing a --overwite tag on anything related to mkinitcpio. I know i’m stupid. I did try clearing the pacman cache first btw.

so the point i’m at now is this: my os install doesnt appear in the grub menu, but snapshots do, i rebooted to the most recent one, x, ldm and sdm failed to start, and i’ve been attempting to roll back to a previous snapshot for the past while. All my prior research has indicated that: while in a snapshot, you cannot use ‘snapper’ and/or ‘btrfs’ commands, but instead must use ‘snapper-tools’ or ‘btrfs-tools’. When running either of those commands, ex: “snapper-tools restore 426” it hands me an error related to qt, since no xserver is running.

edit: i will also note, i donthave a UDB stick available to me right now, i’m a uni student in the middle of a move. So i’m attempting to do this without one, otherwise i’d have chrooted in already.

[SGS]

Since nobody here can do magic …
you should first move in peace, then get a USB stick and repair your destroyed system. If that doesn’t work, post your garuda-inxi.
Garuda uses dracut and updates should be made regularly with garuda-update.

All the best with the move.

[aforre1120]

Alright, having finished (mostly) the whole moving thing, and being pushed against the deadlines of end of term papers, I’d really like to avoid having to write them in MS windows, so, here we go again. I found a flash drive. It’s USB 2.0, it works though.

My new situation is as follows, live garuda-linux install, any attempts to either garuda-chroot, or arch-chroot into my drive work, but do not allow any system modifications, drive is acting like a read only drive, and any attempts to use snapper-tools to restore it to a previous incarnation end in a

[root@garuda-xfce /]# snapper-tools restore 424
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'QUnhandledException'
  what():  std::exception
Aborted (core dumped)

Garuda-update, pacman -Sy, Pacman -Syu, etc, all end in a “no space on device”, thunar registers 7gb free on device. Any pacman or garuda-update leads also to “unable to lock database” likely as a result of read only.

As requested, here is garuda-inxi

[root@garuda-xfce /]# garuda-inxi 
12System:
  12Kernel 6.1.60-1-lts 12arch x86_64 12bits 64 12compiler gcc 12v 13.2.1 12clocksource tsc 12avail acpi_pm
    12parameters BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-x86_64 lang=en_US keytable=us tz=UTC misobasedir=garuda
    root=miso:LABEL=GARUDA_XFCE_RAPTOR quiet systemd.show_status=1 ibt=off
    systemd.unified_cgroup_hierarchy=1 driver=nonfree nouveau.modeset=0 i915.modeset=1
    radeon.modeset=1
  12Desktop Xfce 12v Cannot 12wm xfwm4 12with xfce4-panel 12tools xfce4-screensaver 12avail xautolock 12dm N/A
    12Distro Arch Linux
12Machine:
  12Type Laptop 12System Dell 12product Inspiron 16 Plus 7620 12v N/A 12serial <filter> 12Chassis 12type 10
    12serial <filter>
  12Mobo Dell 12model 0FHYTW 12v A00 12serial <filter> 12part-nu 0B3C
    12uuid 4c4c4544-0032-5110-8051-b8c04f514c33 12UEFI Dell 12v 1.18.0 12date 09/20/2023
12Battery:
  12ID-1 BAT0 12charge 50.9 Wh (82.4%) 12condition 61.8/84.3 Wh (73.3%) 12volts 12.6 12min 11.4
    12model BYD DELL M59JH24 12type Li-poly 12serial <filter> 12status charging
  12Device-1 hidpp_battery_0 12model Logitech Wireless Mouse M325 12serial <filter> 12charge Normal
    12status discharging
12CPU:
  12Info 12model 12th Gen Intel Core i7-12700H 12socket U3E1 12bits 64 12type MST AMCP 12arch Alder Lake
    12gen core 12 12level v3 12note check 12built 2021+ 12process Intel 7 (10nm ESF) 12family 6
    12model-id 0x9A (154) 12stepping 3 12microcode 0x42C
  12Topology 12cpus 1x 12cores 11 12mt 6 12tpc 2 12st 5 12threads 17 12smt enabled 12cache 12L1 960 KiB 12desc d-5x32
    KiB, 6x48 KiB; i-6x32 KiB, 5x64 KiB 12L2 11.5 MiB 12desc 6x1.2 MiB, 2x2 MiB 12L3 24 MiB 12desc 1x24 MiB
  12Speed (MHz) 12avg 805 12high 3032 12min/max 400/4600:4700:3500 12base/boost 4059/4700 12scaling
    12driver intel_pstate 12governor powersave 12volts 1.2 V 12ext-clock 100 MHz 12cores 121 635 122 400 123 3032
    124 400 125 2294 126 400 127 400 128 400 129 400 1210 400 1211 400 1212 400 1213 1751 1214 400 1215 400 1216 400 1217 1182
    12bogomips 91426
  12Flags avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  12Vulnerabilities <filter>
12Graphics:
  12Device-1 Intel Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] 12vendor Dell 12driver i915 12v kernel 12arch Gen-12.2
    12process Intel 10nm 12built 2021-22+ 12ports 12active eDP-1 12empty DP-1,DP-2,HDMI-A-1 12bus-ID 0000:00:02.0
    12chip-ID 8086:46a6 12class-ID 0300
  12Device-2 NVIDIA GA107M [GeForce RTX 3050 Mobile] 12vendor Dell 12driver nvidia 12v 535.113.01
    12non-free 545.xx+ 12status current (as of 2024-02; EOL~2026-12-xx) 12arch Ampere 12code GAxxx
    12process TSMC n7 (7nm) 12built 2020-2023 12bus-ID 0000:01:00.0 12chip-ID 10de:25a2 12class-ID 0302
  12Device-3 Microdia Integrated_Webcam_FHD 12driver uvcvideo 12type USB 12rev 2.0 12speed 480 Mb/s 12lanes 1
    12mode 2.0 12bus-ID 3-6:4 12chip-ID 0c45:6739 12class-ID 0e02
  12Display 12server X.org 12v 1.21.1.12 12compositor xfwm4 12driver 12gpu i915 12display-ID :0.0
  12Monitor-1 eDP-1 12model BOE Display 0x09d5 12built 2021 12res 3072x1920 12dpi 226 12gamma 1.2
    12size 345x215mm (13.58x8.46") 12diag 407mm (16") 12ratio 16:10 12modes 3072x1920
  12API EGL 12v 1.5 12hw 12drv intel iris 12platforms 12device 1 12drv iris 12device 2 12drv swrast 12gbm 12drv iris
    12surfaceless 12drv swrast 12inactive wayland,x11,device-0
  12API OpenGL 12v 4.6 12compat-v 4.5 12vendor mesa 12v 24.0.4-arch1.2 12note incomplete (EGL sourced)
    12renderer Mesa Intel Graphics (ADL GT2), llvmpipe (LLVM 17.0.6 256 bits)
  12API Vulkan 12Message No Vulkan data available.
12Audio:
  12Device-1 Intel Alder Lake PCH-P High Definition Audio 12vendor Dell 12driver sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl
    12bus-ID 0000:00:1f.3 12chip-ID 8086:51c8 12class-ID 0401
  12API ALSA 12v k6.1.60-1-lts 12status kernel-api 12tools alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  12Server-1 PipeWire 12v 1.0.4 12status n/a (root, process) 12with 121 pipewire-pulse 12status active
    122 wireplumber 12status active 123 pipewire-alsa 12type plugin 124 pw-jack 12type plugin
    12tools pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
12Network:
  12Device-1 Intel Alder Lake-P PCH CNVi WiFi 12driver iwlwifi 12v kernel 12bus-ID 0000:00:14.3
    12chip-ID 8086:51f0 12class-ID 0280
  12IF wlp0s20f3 12state up 12mac <filter>
  12Info 12services NetworkManager, systemd-timesyncd, wpa_supplicant
12Bluetooth:
  12Device-1 Intel AX211 Bluetooth 12driver btusb 12v 0.8 12type USB 12rev 2.0 12speed 12 Mb/s 12lanes 1 12mode 1.1
    12bus-ID 3-10:5 12chip-ID 8087:0033 12class-ID e001
  12Report btmgmt 12ID hci0 12rfk-id 0 12state up 12address <filter> 12bt-v 5.3 12lmp-v 12 12status
    12discoverable no 12pairing no 12class-ID 7c010c
12RAID:
  12Hardware-1 Intel Volume Management Device NVMe RAID Controller 12driver vmd 12v 0.6 12port N/A
    12bus-ID 0000:00:0e.0 12chip-ID 8086:467f 12rev 12class-ID 0104
12Drives:
  12Local Storage 12total 491.39 GiB 12used 205.25 GiB (41.8%)
  12SMART Message Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
  12ID-1 /dev/nvme0n1 12maj-min 259:0 12vendor SK Hynix 12model BC711 NVMe 512GB 12size 476.94 GiB
    12block-size 12physical 512 B 12logical 512 B 12speed 31.6 Gb/s 12lanes 4 12tech SSD 12serial <filter>
    12fw-rev 41002131 12temp 42.9 C
  12ID-2 /dev/sda 12maj-min 8:0 12vendor PNY 12model USB 2.0 FD 12size 14.45 GiB 12block-size 12physical 512 B
    12logical 512 B 12type USB 12rev 2.0 12spd 480 Mb/s 12lanes 1 12mode 2.0 12tech N/A 12serial <filter> 12fw-rev PMAP
12Partition:
  12ID-1 / 12raw-size 213 GiB 12size 213 GiB (100.00%) 12used 205.25 GiB (96.4%) 12fs btrfs 12block-size 4096 B
    12dev /dev/dm-0 12maj-min 254:0 12mapped luks-9aa8c990-7295-45d1-942d-f40daa456e5f
12Swap:
  12Kernel 12swappiness 133 (default 60) 12cache-pressure 100 (default) 12zswap no
  12ID-1 swap-1 12type zram 12size 15.31 GiB 12used 0 KiB (0.0%) 12priority 100 12comp zstd
    12avail lzo,lzo-rle,lz4,lz4hc,842 12max-streams 17 12dev /dev/zram0
12Sensors:
  12System Temperatures 12cpu 39.0 C 12mobo N/A
  12Fan Speeds (rpm) N/A
12Info:
  12Memory 12total 16 GiB 12available 15.31 GiB 12used 4.91 GiB (32.0%) 12igpu 64 MiB
  12Processes 392 12Power 12uptime 15m 12states freeze,mem,disk 12suspend s2idle 12wakeups 0
    12hibernate platform 12avail shutdown, reboot, suspend, test_resume 12image 6.1 GiB
    12services upowerd,xfce4-power-manager 12Init systemd 12v 255 12default graphical 12tool systemctl
  12Packages 12pm pacman 12pkgs 2082 12libs 568 12tools paru,yay 12Compilers 12clang 17 12gcc 13.2.1 12alt 12
    12Client Unknown Client: cpuhp/ 12inxi 3.3.33
Garuda (2.6.25-1):
  System install date:     2023-10-23
  Last full system update: 2024-01-24
  Is partially upgraded:   Yes
  Relevant software:       snapper NetworkManager connman mkinitcpio nvidia-dkms
  Windows dual boot:       No/Undetected
Running in chroot, ignoring command 'list-units'
  Failed units: 

[aforre1120]

Add on to previous post: use of BTRFS-Assistant to attempt to restore yeilds an error of “unable to create backup”

[SGS]

@aforre1120

Is partially upgraded: Yes

Fix it first

@aforre1120

“unable to lock database”

Try

fixpacman

Maybe

Error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/…/{desc,files,mtree}: No such file or directory

Your local package database and/or metadata may become corrupted if an update process is interrupted, for example if you hard power off during an update. Metadata corruption will generally manifest in a message similar to: error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/$pkgname-$pkgver-$pkgrel/desc: No such file or directory error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/$pkgname-$pkgver-$pkgrel/files: No such file or directory error: could not open file /var/lib/pacman/local/$pkgname-$pkg…

@aforre1120

chroot into my drive work, but do not allow any system modifications,

Post logs as text from update

Repair your system first, I don’t think you can restore/boot a snapshot from live ISO. But

[aforre1120]

fixpacman doesn’t appear to be something I can execute from a chroot, just get a command not found.

results of update

:: Synchronizing package databases...
 garuda is up to date
 core.db failed to download
 extra.db failed to download
 multilib              138.4 KiB   795 KiB/s 00:00 [----------------------] 100%
 chaotic-aur.db failed to download
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/core.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/core.db (No space left on device)
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db (No space left on device)
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db (No space left on device)
error: failed to synchronize all databases (unexpected error)
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 chaotic-aur.db failed to download
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db (No space left on device)
error: failed to synchronize all databases (unexpected error)
gawk: inplace:66: (FILENAME=/etc/pacman.conf FNR=90) fatal: inplace::end: rename(`/etc/pacman.conf.gawk.AlXgWB', `/etc/pacman.conf') failed (No space left on device)

--> Refreshing mirrorlists using rate-mirrors, please be patient..🍵

:: Synchronizing package databases...
 garuda downloading...
 core downloading...
 extra downloading...
 multilib downloading...
 chaotic-aur downloading...
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/core.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/core.db (No space left on device)
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/garuda.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/garuda.db (No space left on device)
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db (No space left on device)
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db (No space left on device)
error: failed to synchronize all databases (unexpected error)
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 chaotic-aur downloading...
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db (No space left on device)
error: failed to synchronize all databases (unexpected error)
spawn pacman -Su -yy
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 garuda                 72.4 KiB   241 KiB/s 00:00 [----------------------] 100%
 core.db failed to download
 extra.db failed to download
 multilib.db failed to download
 chaotic-aur.db failed to download
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/multilib.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/multilib.db (No space left on device)
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/core.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/core.db (No space left on device)
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/chaotic-aur.db (No space left on device)
error: could not rename /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db.part to /var/lib/pacman/sync/extra.db (No space left on device)
error: failed to synchronize all databases (unexpected error)
sh-5.2# 

Repair your system first, I don’t think you can restore/boot a snapshot from live ISO. But

I read somewhere on snapper-tools documentation that it should allow you to restore from a live ISO I think? I ain’t sure. The docs for snapper tools and for btrfs-assistant don’t really appear to be very good. neither of them have a man page.

[filo]

You can restore a snapshot from the live USB but, rather than from inside the chroot, I’d just mount your system partition when booted off the live USB and launch the btrfs-assistant. You should see your snapshots and should be able to restore the one you need.
Anyway, please consider that for an update when

@aforre1120

Last full system update: 2024-01-24

The available space might still be a bit limited.

@aforre1120

12ID-1 / 12raw-size 213 GiB 12size 213 GiB (100.00%) 12used 205.25 GiB (96.4%)

Well, maybe not for Xfce. I’m still thinking with the KDE mindset and with the KDE6 upgrade in my mind.
Anyway, from the btrfs-assistant you might delete some older snapshot as well.

[aforre1120]

You can restore a snapshot from the live USB but, rather than from inside the chroot, I’d just mount your system partition when booted off the live USB and launch the btrfs-assistant.

I’ve tried, the only result I get is an error saying “Failed to make a backup of target subvolume” when using btrfs-assistant, and when using snapper tools I get “unkown error whilst moving subvolume to snapshop”. Any attempts to do so from the command line net similar errors. Also why does btrfs-assistand and snapper-tools both lack a man page?

command line for reasons:

 ╭─garuda@garuda in ~ as 🧙 took 63ms
[🔴] × sudo snapper-tools restore 424 -d
"b3834fc6-b531-4580-9794-0bc966454567"
"Mounting b3834fc6-b531-4580-9794-0bc966454567"
"/run/snapper-tools-YqEDmf/@/.snapshots" "/run/snapper-tools-YqEDmf/@_backup_20242304142149678/.snapshots"
"Unmounting  /run/snapper-tools-YqEDmf"
Error while running action restore: Unknown error while moving subvolume to snapshot

Edit: posted full debub version of snapper-tools output

[aforre1120]

Here’s an update: I apparently was able to fully boot into my system on an older snapshot than what I’d been trying, Still cannot restore the snapshot, still gives the same error codes.

[SGS]

@aforre1120

Is partially upgraded: Yes

You fix it?
All in all, maybe a fresh install was a better solution.

Dont forget the backup.

[aforre1120]

cleared up 50gb worth of files, was then able to do a restore with btrfs-assistant, but I will say, btrfs being as storage space hungry as it is might be enough to push me away from the filesystem. It’s unreasonable to expect people to keep their drives 50gb free, when that represents 1/5th of my total storage space on this system. I’m a photographer, whilst I prefer to work in analog, I do work in digital, and digital raw photos take up a lot of space.

anyways, the errors are not done yet.

garuda-update throws:

[aforre@ZenBook15Linux ~]$ garuda-update
Place your finger on the fingerprint reader
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 garuda                 72.4 KiB  53.9 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100%
 core                  127.4 KiB  1274 KiB/s 00:00 [----------------------] 100%
 extra                   8.1 MiB  10.1 MiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100%
 multilib              138.4 KiB  1488 KiB/s 00:00 [----------------------] 100%
 chaotic-aur          1962.6 KiB  1351 KiB/s 00:01 [----------------------] 100%
 blackarch               3.9 MiB  2.04 MiB/s 00:02 [----------------------] 100%
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) garuda-update-4.8.0-1

Total Installed Size:  0.02 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:      0.00 MiB

:: Proceed with installation? [Y/n] 
:: Retrieving packages...
(1/1) checking keys in keyring                     [----------------------] 100%
(1/1) checking package integrity                   [----------------------] 100%
error: failed to commit transaction (wrong or NULL argument passed)
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) garuda-update-4.8.0-1

Total Installed Size:  0.02 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:      0.00 MiB

[aforre1120]

scratch that, easy fix, cleared cache. apologies for posting when it was unneeded.

[aforre1120]

The original error I had during my attempts to update weeks back have reappeared. This happened after getting an error on a previous attempt of “out of space”. I have space, the download was something like 12gb, net upgrade of 2, I have something like 60gb available now. Any attempts to run update, or pacman -Syu lead to this.

(653/653) checking keys in keyring                 [----------------------] 100%
(653/653) checking package integrity               [----------------------] 100%
(653/653) loading package files                    [----------------------] 100%
(653/653) checking for file conflicts              [----------------------] 100%
error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files)
mkinitcpio: /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/encrypt exists in filesystem
mkinitcpio: /usr/lib/initcpio/hooks/udev exists in filesystem
mkinitcpio: /usr/lib/initcpio/install/encrypt exists in filesystem
mkinitcpio: /usr/lib/initcpio/install/sd-encrypt exists in filesystem
mkinitcpio: /usr/lib/initcpio/install/systemd exists in filesystem
mkinitcpio: /usr/lib/initcpio/install/udev exists in filesystem
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

I should note, my first attempt just ended with an “out of space” whilst I had 50gb of space free. this is the 2nd attempt after clearing up another 10gb worth.

[SGS]

Use

sudo pacman -Syu --overwrite '*'

maybe check the files in

/usr/lib/initcpio/