[Solved] Gnome Shell and Sway freezes shortly after logging in

Framework Laptop 13 Linux
1

Which Linux distro are you using? Which release version?
Fedora 41 Workstation

Which kernel are you using?
6.13.5-200
6.11.4-301

Which BIOS version are you using?
v3.05

Which Framework Laptop 13 model are you using?
AMD Ryzen™ 7040 Series, 7840U

I haven’t touched my F13 in a couple weeks due to life stuff, so I decided to do a system update and get it all healthy. After logging in, Gnome was completely unresponsive. I thought this was due to the extensions, so I found a way to disable them. Now, I can enter the shell for a couple of seconds, but once I do anything like open up the terminal or a browser, it freezes completely. The same thing happens in Sway to my surprise.

This is kind of scaring me, as I really need a reliable machine for university in the summer. What could possibly be happening? What logs should I be looking at?

I could really use the help. I’m really shaken up by this

[Solution] [Solved] Gnome Shell and Sway freezes shortly after logging in - #14 by Joel_Desermeau - Make sure you are using kernel 6.13.5. For some reason, Grub kept reverting to a previous version, perhaps due to a previously forced shutdown. If this is happening to you, run uname -a and make sure Grub is selecting the right kernel. If you find that Grub keeps reverting to a previous entry, use the grubby tool to set your default boot entry to the proper index.

2

It might be easiest to try a clean install.

  1. copy important documents and other files you don’t wanna lose to an external device. than

  2. format the drive following the instruction given in the installation guide that should be available online.

  3. follow the rest of the guide for a new install.

hopefully the system works.

  1. copy your saved files from the external device to the system.

  2. If you have any problem reach out for help.

/Zoe

3

A clean install is a nuclear solution. Surely other users have encountered this?

I can access a tty from GDM, and that does not freeze.

4

you can try removing the configuration files you have changed, easiest is to rename by adding something to the end of the name.

other wise your symptom almost sound like the drive is mounted as read only, have you checked that the drive is mounted correctly?

/Zoe

5

I didn’t change any configuration files manually. All I did was a system update.

My drive is mounted read/write

6

do you have access to the other tty? press ctrl-alt-f1 to f7 and a virtual terminal should show up.

7

I have access to my other ttys.

8

can you share /var/log/Xorg.0.log?

9

I don’t have Xorg installed, only default Gnome Shell

10

I would be very surprised if you don’t have at least Xwayland installed, as that is necessary to run X11 apps.

can you confirm your issue is both with wayland native apps as well as X11 apps?

and pleas also run the command:

find -iregex .*xorg.*

maybe we will find something.

11

pleas ignore me, it seems that fedora 41 is indeed wayland.

unfortunately that means I will not be able to help as I have never used wayland.

12

Thanks for trying to help, Zoe. I appreciate it!

1 Like
13

If you are willing to try a wild card you could run dmesg, after the freez and se if that reveals any useful information.

14

I have made progress in diagnosing the issue.

Purportedly, these problems were common for people running kernel <6.13.5. Check it out: AMD Framework 13 7840U - Fedora 41 Kernel 6.13.4 Freezing - #5 by JibberX

The exact same issue - shell frozen, unresponsive keyboard. Even unable to access an emergency tty.

This is the post that I have initially thought was the issue, but I ignored considering that everybody in the community regarded the issue as fixed with the kernel that I am currently using (6.13.5).

That is, until I just discoverd that when I reboot, grub rolls back to 6.11.4 (!!) and my earlier explicit selection of 6.13.5 does not persist, to my surprise. I was only able to figure this out just now. Every time I rebooted, I was booting into a buggy kernel without me knowing.

I just explicitly booted into 6.13.5, and I am in Gnome and it seems stable. I absolutely MUST test further to see if this is actually fixed, otherwise I run the risk of wasting yours and other people’s time.

I am in Gnome, running dmesg -w in a terminal in the left pane while doing a simple sanity and stress tests in my right pane. If something fishy is going to happen, I’ll see it. I will always have journalctl -b -1 as well if the freeze happens before dmesg output.

2 Likes
15

better that then rolling back 6.6.74 as grub did to me when I was trying to update to a 6.13.3. ended up switching to efi-stub, now everything works great, and I can chose what kernel I want in bios if the new kernel has issues

/Zoe

1 Like
16

I’ve heard good things about efi-stub.

I’m going to mark this as solved tomorrow after I do some more testing just to be sure.

Thanks for walking through the issue with me and keeping me grounded and chilled out. I was pretty worried about the prospect of needing to nuke and pave my install.

1 Like
17

Hey there :waving_hand: I’m so grateful for this post: I ran into the same issue last Sunday, and also did observe that using the “right” kernel version seemed to reduce the chance of freezes in Gnome. I haven’t had a lot of time to do extensive testing ever since, but last night I went into my GRUB settings and changed my saved_default to the 6.13.5 entry, and from limited testing it seemed to give me more stability. I will come back to this post if I notice more freezes, but hopefully this is the end of the story :grin:

18

A post was split to a new topic: Loading latest kernel

19

Hey,

I flagged your post as off-topic so that staff can move your post to a place where you’re more likely to get help.

/Zoe