GDM start failed, possibly related to wpa_supplicant

[astrojhgu]

Describe the bug Thinkpad X1 YOGA 2020, sometimes, GDB failed to startup and the screen stuck at the terminal login prompt.

To Reproduce Reboot the machine with command reboot (this is not important, sometime cold start can also cause this failure.

Expected behavior The system boot up normall and show GDM login screen

Screenshots If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Additional context By checking the journal -b output, I find that in the boot process that failed, shortly before the step in which GDM should start, an error

Oct 01 00:40:27 perseus NetworkManager[1023]: <error> [1601484027.8532] device (wlp0s20f3): Couldn't initialize supplicant interface: Failed to D-Bus activate wpa_supplicant service
...
...
...
Oct 01 00:40:36 perseus systemd-logind[999]: Failed to start session scope session-c1.scope: Connection timed out

While in conditions that GDB started normally, there is no above error.

My wifi card is :

00:14.3 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless-AC 9462 [8086:02f0]

By changing the backend of networkmanager to iwd does not solve this problem, but the error is slightly different. Could it be related to the wifi driver?

Notify maintainers

Metadata Please run nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m" and paste the result.

 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 5.8.11, NixOS, 20.09beta538.0cfe5377e89 (Nightingale)`
 - multi-user?: `yes`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.3.7`
 - channels(root): `"nixos-20.09"`
 - channels(astrojhgu): `""`
 - nixpkgs: `/nix/var/nix/profiles/per-user/root/channels/nixos`

Maintainer information:

# a list of nixpkgs attributes affected by the problem
attribute:
# a list of nixos modules affected by the problem
module:

[worldofpeace]

So if you change to iwd, which basically axes wpa_supplicant, it's likely that the problem isn't one with wpa_supplicant but common to both. I think gdm (the display-manager) not starting is really weird. It could be that it seems in the codebase there wasn't a good understanding on properly requiring networking https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/NetworkTarget/ (ref https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/60900). Anyways, that's probably another issue we just crossed paths with.

sometimes

This makes this issue a lot more difficult. ATM I don't think I have anything else to add as I'm short on bandwidth :frowning: Sorry about that.

[astrojhgu]

I changed my display-manager from GDM to sddm then this problem disappeared. So it should be related to GDM.

So if you change to iwd, which basically axes wpa_supplicant, it's likely that the problem isn't one with wpa_supplicant but common to both. I think gdm (the display-manager) not starting is really weird. It could be that it seems in the codebase there wasn't a good understanding on properly requiring networking https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/NetworkTarget/ (ref #60900). Anyways, that's probably another issue we just crossed paths with.

sometimes

This makes this issue a lot more difficult. ATM I don't think I have anything else to add as I'm short on bandwidth frowning Sorry about that.

[stale[bot]]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[mmahut]

I'm seeing the same problem when migrating to 21.05.

[kvark]

I think I'm seeing this on Framework laptop. NixOS freshly installed from 21.05.3774. "WiFi: Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX210 vPro®" if that's relevant. System boots, there is a bunch of console messages with "OK", last of them being:

Started Session c1 of user gdm.

And that's it, it hangs without switching to the login prompt, doesn't react to any buttons :/

[kvark]

My problem was caused by some of the folders owned by the user instead of root, which in turn was caused by #141557.

[stale[bot]]

I marked this as stale due to inactivity. → More info

[pmarreck]

My problem was caused by some of the folders owned by the user instead of root, which in turn was caused by #141557.

Which folders, @kvark ? Seeing exact same issue on an Eluktronics laptop with an AX200 intel wifi card

[kvark]

@pmarreck I'm sorry, this information is lost by now.