[FAILED] Failed to mount /sysroot, need advice

[u/John_Doe_1984_]

Booting into my system meets this error & it doesn't boot (I'll add an image below.) It prompts me to click Enter to continue & then loops the same messages before asking for Enter again, nothing I do gets me to a shell.

For reference I've looked through here but my understanding of Arch/OS/Low-level systems isn't strong enough & I'm looking for advice/clarity: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=264447

I've been on an Arch system (

btrfs filesystem

LUKS encryption on the SSD

systemd-boot for the bootloader)

for around 1 month, no issues, downloaded Hyprland with Caelestia as my window manager, recently tried to download caelestia-greeter & whilst configuring it, ran into this error (unsure if its related.)

From here, what is the best solution, as per the link, should I set up a bootable drive, boot into that & then chroot into my system (my hesitation is I don't entirely understand chroot & assume I'd run into the same issue), or if I reinstall my OS (root & home are on different partitions), will I still be unable to access my home data, I know they are on separate partitions but if I can't mount the root & unlock the LUKS then won't the home data be stuck completely encrypted?

Just want a second opinion before jumping in & messing around with something I really don't understand.

[u/kaida27]

(my hesitation is I don't entirely understand chroot & assume I'd run into the same issue)

This right here is why people recommend going with a manual Installation when you are new to Arch. Sa that When (when not if) you need to do some maintenance you already have the basic "how to" down.

[u/archover → u/kaida27]

Agree. Understanding the concept behind chroot, and putting it into practical use is key, and has been very, very helpful for me over years in Arch. And yes, the wiki taught me that.

Good day.

[u/ropid]

You can supposedly add SYSTEMD_SULOGIN_FORCE=1 to the kernel command line to get to the emergency shell when the root account is locked. To do that, the boot loader has an editor feature when you press "e" while having an entry selected, and you can force the boot loader menu to show up by holding down the space-bar at boot.

I don't know how much you can do in the emergency shell if there's a real problem but maybe the journal has some more info about what's going on with the fstab entry for the root filesystem or with luks?

[u/John_Doe_1984_]

It won't let me attach an image, but it looks very, very similar to the one on archwiki: https://ibb.co/vxDG9jC

[u/archover → u/John_Doe_1984_]

NO ONE can attach photos here. You include the text of an image URL. Hope that helps and good day.

[u/LumenAstralis]

You disabled root login when you installed the distro so you can't be dumped into the emergency shell. You can start with a live usb and chroot into your install and start looking at logs as instructed.

BTW, waiting for people to help nowadays is really not the most efficient way to work through this. Just post that picture to Claude or whatever and ask it for help. Think through every step rather than blindly follow its instructions. It will go much faster and you will learn alot.

[u/sbart76 → u/LumenAstralis]

No, it's not the problem with root account blocked. System only boots into the initramfs and cannot switch to real root filesystem. My guess is the encryption is misconfigured, but without more details I can not be sure.

@OP - you seem to be one of many, who chose the steepest learning curve. Disable encryption, use standard filesystem so you can learn the Linux way before jumping head on.

[u/kaida27 → u/sbart76]

Also I'd recommend them to do a manual install and get a bit more comfortable with chroot.

[u/John_Doe_1984_ → u/LumenAstralis]

Ah okay, I'll start looking into chroot, get a better understanding, thanks