System unbootable after power off during KDE user lock

[Spargeltarzan]

Dear community,

I accidentally locked myself out of KDE due to typing the password wrong 3 times. Since I was unfortunately impatient I powered off my computer (it didn't shutdown as I thought but immediately turned off completely)

Grub was missing afterwards, firstly. I re-installed grub from the live stick. When I booted the system, I start to have mount issues /proc/mounts is not found.

I read I should also re-emerge grub from live stick, so I did. Consequently, I was able to boot my system once normally. Portage is still working fine. But after a reboot I face the issues again.

Openrc cannot start services e.g. Bluetooth needs non existent service 'localmount', or cronie, dbus dhcpd etc.
"there is no Filesystem in /proc/mounts is one message, too.

I get a user login prompt though.
I tried re-emerging Grub from live stick once again, but this time it doesn't fix the issue anymore.

What could be wrong? Maybe some PAM lock on mounts due to the power off while my user was actually locked? I can't imagine a reason why I was able to boot my system correctly, once.

Please support, I am grateful for any help!

Kind Regards
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Regards

Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
Desktop-PC: Intel Core i7-4770K, 8GB Ram, AMD Radeon R9 280X, ZFS Storage, GNOME openrc, Dantrell, Xen

[szatox]

Woah, woah, too much, too fast. Pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and slow down a bit.
There are a lot of plot twists in your story, but what problem are you actually trying to solve? You said you're getting to the user login prompt, so why are you stuck on reinstalling GRUB?
What init system do you use?
What is the thing you still can't do after all your attempts so far? Like in: what is broken, not what you can't repair.
What errors do you see during boot?

A shot in the dark: do you know the trick with adding init=/bin/bash to kernel's boot line allows you to have a look around the system instead of initializing it? Very handy for changing forgotten passwords, testing filesystem integrity and things vaguely related to SHTF recovery.
There are also parameters like "single" which should let you login as root after going through init, and I don't remember the exact option name right now, but AFAIR genkernel initramfs can drop you to shell a few times during boot sequence, so you can look around, possibly fix something, and then continue.
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[Spargeltarzan]

Thank you for your reply!

Yes, I unfortunately rely on my Notebook and tried to fix it quite fast.

After my power-off, grub was unavailable. Instead, my notebook started to boot my dual-boot Windows immediately.

That's why I booted the sysrescuecd from USB to fix GRUB and I hoped, that will fix all issues.

I use openrc.

Unfortunately, after I fixed GRUB, the boot-process shows error with starting almost every service. The prompt simply states the service cannot be started, e.g. "Bluetooth needs nonexistent service 'localmount'. The same for services as cronie, dbus, dhcpcd.

I believe my main error is "there is no filesystem in /proc/mounts" during the boot process.

Usually, my notebook starts every service right and loads the KDE desktop. Now, booting brings those mount/service start issues and leads to a user prompt. I can login as user, that works. This is the current error.

I tried to mess around with GRUB again, because simply re-emerging GRUB solved the mount issues for exactly one boot, although GRUB itself worked.

I try now the init=/bin/bash to kernel command line and will let you know the results, thank you for the first hint!

ADD: When I boot with the kernel command line init=/bin/bash I get root prompt without mount issues. Unfortunately I don't know what kind of testing I could do to find the causes of those proc mount issues or services which cannot start. When booted with /bin/bash, the system doesn't know even shutdown -h now. I turned off my notebook manually.

Any idea where I could start looking for what is wrong why my system cannot mount or start services and KDE?
_________________
___________________
Regards

Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
Desktop-PC: Intel Core i7-4770K, 8GB Ram, AMD Radeon R9 280X, ZFS Storage, GNOME openrc, Dantrell, Xen

[Spargeltarzan]

I removed the init=/bin/bash line again from my sys rescue live stick. Wrote a new grub config and my system booted again fully right exactly once. KDE launched, I was able to login and work normally. Every service started right.

After I shutdown the system, I cannot boot anymore and have again the same issues. During boot, the services cannot be started and mount issues with proc arise.

So my twist and dance with Grub somehow leads to something, what enables me to boot into the system fully right once.

I have never experienced issues like that!
_________________
___________________
Regards

Spargeltarzan

Notebook: Lenovo YOGA 900-13ISK: Gentoo stable amd64, GNOME systemd, KVM/QEMU
Desktop-PC: Intel Core i7-4770K, 8GB Ram, AMD Radeon R9 280X, ZFS Storage, GNOME openrc, Dantrell, Xen

[szatox]

How reliably does your boot fail? Does it happen every time after that initial success following fixing grub?
Did you start windows between your successful boot and the following failed one? I wonder if it perhaps attempted to "fix" your linux-infested machine.

Do you use initramfs with your kernel or do you boot directly into rootfs? Initramfs should mount kernel interfaces (including proc) at the very very early boot, long before localmount tries to run. It is something you can check after hacking in with bash.
Check lsblk too. Make sure your rootfs is on the partition you think it is.
Dmesg may or may not contain some errors.
There is also /proc/cmdline, which contains arguments passed to the kernel at boot. If bootloader is actually a problem, you might find some garbage there instead of what you expected.
Openrc has interactive mode too, starting services 1 by 1, and I think with more verbose messages. Can be useful for debugging boot. See /etc/rc.conf. You have to set a variable and AFAIR press "I" at boot time to enter interactive mode.

You boot in EFI mode, right? Do you even need grub in the first place?
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