long shot, but do you have a thunderbolt device plugged in? I swear my thunderbolt display fucks with my system while booting, but it could just be a specific problem with my specific display
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2025
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Actually, I do have a thunderbolt device plugged in, but I have already ruled it out as a possible cause since the issue still persists even when the thunderbolt device is not plugged in.
Ahh gotcha. Best of luck sorting it out!
And here’s my journalctl output after booting
Please read it instead of just posting. You have a bunch of errors there that look like the result of your customizations. But in regards to sddm it clearly says the reason for not showing:
Oct 03 17:02:41 SadgeUmU-PC sddm[1596]: Failed to read display number from pipe
This error has a ton of suggested solutions online. You'll have to try them out.
And on the reddit post you linked somebody told you to search for that error as well, please do that.
I did search for the issue. I tried adding i915 to my initramfs modules while it did make the boot a lot cleaner looking, but the sddm is still not rendering, it is there though, I just can't see it.
But in regards to sddm it clearly says the reason for not showing:
Oct 03 17:02:41 SadgeUmU-PC sddm[1596]: Failed to read display number from pipe
Not so clearly. The error message could be the result of something else that went wrong beforehand, which wasn't flagged as a real error.
try updating your packages and see if that helps, also can you do a systemctl status sddm
also can you do a
systemctl status sddm
here's the output https://pastebin.com/mF9h0x9e
I think this might have something to do with the issue but I'm not sure
sddm-helper[1790]: Failed to write utmpx: No such file or directory lines 1-25/25 (END)
No, this error is harmless. There is a Debian bugreport to remove even logging that error.
Is this the sddm status you've posted after starting it manually?
If you have separate partitions for root/home, just reinstall kubuntu.
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"My car's door stopped working and I can't get inside"
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"If your personal belongings are in the trunk, just sell this one and buy a new car"
edit: actually nevermind I checked OPs journal output and reddit posts and there are so many issues all at once. It's not just the car's door, it's so much more.
So yeah, consider reinstalling. It might all be fixable with a lot of effort, but doing a reinstall would probably be faster and easier.
Linux is not a car. If i could reinstall a broken car i would do it instead burying money and time in it.
If you could only ever use perfectly equal analogies, you could never use them.
If I have a car and the door doesn't open, I can sell it for 2900 and buy the same model of similarely used car for 3200. In this case you lose some money.
Reinstalling an OS loses you some time.
Some people leave everything on default and then reinstalling would be quick. Or they use dotfiles or nix like systems to keep track of the state.
Others like me have so many untracked changes in / it would take a week (if not a month) of fulltime work to reinstall and set everything up as it was before. Home is definitely not the blocker here. You know how much money I make if I keep working during that week?
I know because I wrote a tool that can do a remote diff of 2 systems and I ran it on my up to date arch and a new arch with the same packages installed.
Multiple hundreds of files had a diff. I took a quick glance at a couple to sanitycheck whether my tool worked but gave up on manually evaluating all of those to see whether I need/want these changes or not.
Thats why I've been cloning the same disk over to new computers for the last 10 years.
So yeah, in the sense of what you lose if you follow the reinstall suggestion it can be similar to the buy new car suggestion. Except aparently not for you.
You use the same linux install (cloned) for a decade? Thats wild. I just install and document my changes so its not much to do for a reinstall. So for some it works, for some not. OP might be like me, thus my answer has a right to exist! Maybe you could stop correcting others for being different.
You use the same linux install (cloned) for a decade?
Yep. And it still works without hickups. It lived on 2 desktops and 2 laptops now. Rolling releases are great, I update weekly.
With debian based stuff, I reinstalled twice a year because back then every dist upgrade would break my setup and it became completely unusable if it booted at all.
thus my answer has a right to exist! Maybe you could stop correcting others for being different.
This goes both ways. In your initial comment you took a onesided position and all I wanted was to show the other side. I don't mean to imply that "my" side is the only one. Sorry if it came of that way.
Cheers mate!