Zorin OS 18 suddenly stuck on boot splash

General Help
1

Hi Folks,

I've been running Zorin OS 18 on a Tiger Lake (Intel 11th Gen) laptop with Iris Xe graphics without issues for a few weeks now and loving it. However, this morning I started getting boot issues: the system hangs on the boot splash with the manufacturer and Z logos, and does not load the desktop.

Thinking I got a bad update, I tried a previous kernel, same issue. Tried advanced recovery options: a filesystem check comes out OK, there are no broken packages, and the system is as updated as it can be.

Funny thing: if I enter recovery, and simply choose the option to continue the boot process, the system boots fine. However, I noticed some "quirks" like the mouse cursor leaving "pieces" of it behind, or odd behavior when alternating Chrome Windows. Maybe it sets a different video mode this way?

Any ideas on what might be wrong? Searching the forums the only similar issues I found are either 1) very old (circa 2023) or 2) related to Nvidia GPU drivers.

BTW, I'm running Wayland, and never had any issues until today.

Some system information:

OS: Zorin OS 18 x86_64
Host: Aspire A514-54 V1.26
Kernel: 6.14.0-33-generic
Packages: 1891 (dpkg), 46 (flatpak),
Shell: bash 5.2.21
Resolution: 1920x1080
DE: GNOME 46.0
WM: Mutter
CPU: 11th Gen Intel i5-1135G7 (8) @
GPU: Intel TigerLake-LP GT2 [Iris Xe
Memory: 5963MiB / 11739MiB

2

After the workaround to get booted, check your Disk Space Usage using the app in the app menu. Is /var - Root filled?

Be aware that Flatpak Packages will not show how much space they are taking up in the app (and Snap hides even more) because they operate on mount points, which keeps that bloat hidden. So if you have installed a lot of Flatpak or a lot of Snap packages, you already have a clue that a lot of space has been filled.

3

Hi Aravisian, thanks for the quick reply.

I do not seem to be low on disk space. /var is at 16%, and the only partition with heavier usage is /home at 69%. /boot also seems to be fine. Here's a screenshot.

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image1054×694 128 KB

4

Wayland is mostly stable on XE, but it does not take much to destabilize it.

Have you tried switching to Xorg to see if it helps (Reminder, it will take two full reboots to test).

If that does not help, check if you need firmware:

sudo apt install intel-media-va-driver-non-free intel-gpu-tools firmware-misc-nonfree

Since your drive space is not full, I am thinking that Graphics hang at initialization is most likely, since workaround grub works to get you booted.

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5

That was weird...

Following your advice, tried switching to X11. System booted fine, tried with multiple reboots.

Then, just for good measure, tried switching back to Wayland and... it works now? I'm not complaining, just surprised by the weird behavior.

Anyway, thank you VERY much for the quick support, Aravisian. This makes me even more sure that Zorin was a great choice. I've been a Linux user for about 25 years now (since the early Red Hat days), and I'm REALLY impressed with the OS so far.

Regards,

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