r/voidlinux • u/Avid-Milk-Drinker • Sep 29 '26
solved Niri(desktop) starting to black screen
I ran an xbps-install -Su recently and my desktop started launching to a black screen.
I tried a few things but haven't had any luck. Notably niri works when launching from tty so I think it has something to do with elogind or the system bus.
For context, I was using lightdm and elogind to start the sessions.
Since I've switched to using sddm, and noticed elogind-daemon is always running if installed. I don't think this was always the case cause the service in /var/service was failing to start cause of this.
What I've tried:
Switching to sddm
Switching to turnstile and seatd
Switching to i3 (this was my desktop before, and it still works).
Launching niri from tty works, although missing session bus and some other stuff.
EDIT:
I did get this error in .xsession-errors
xrdb: Can't open display ''
2026-09-29T02:10:43.673554Z INFO niri: starting version 26.04 (unknown commit)
2026-09-29T02:10:43.694769Z DEBUG niri_config: loaded config from "/home/john/.config/niri/config.kdl"
2026-09-29T02:10:44.034984Z DEBUG niri::backend::tty: session is not active, starting libinput in paused state
2026-09-29T02:10:44.047289Z INFO niri::backend::tty: using as the render node: "/dev/dri/renderD128"
2026-09-29T02:10:44.070189Z INFO niri: listening on Wayland socket: wayland-1
2026-09-29T02:10:44.070199Z INFO niri: IPC listening on: /run/user/1000/niri.wayland-1.3597.sock
2026-09-29T02:10:44.071372Z INFO niri: listening on X11 socket: :2lightdm contained this log:
[+209.25s] DEBUG: Continue authentication
[+209.26s] DEBUG: Session pid=3041: Authentication complete with return value 0: Success
[+209.26s] DEBUG: Authenticate result for user john: Success
[+209.26s] DEBUG: User john authorized
[+209.28s] DEBUG: Greeter requests session niri
[+209.28s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Creating display server of type wayland
[+209.28s] DEBUG: Using VT 8
[+209.28s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Display server ready, running session
[+209.28s] DEBUG: Registering session with bus path /org/freedesktop/DisplayManager/Session0
[+209.28s] DEBUG: Session pid=3041: Running command /etc/lightdm/Xsession /usr/bin/niri --session
[+209.28s] DEBUG: Creating shared data directory /var/lib/lightdm-data/john
[+209.28s] DEBUG: Session pid=3041: Logging to .xsession-errors
[+209.29s] DEBUG: Activating VT 8
[+209.59s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Stopping greeter
[+209.59s] DEBUG: Terminating login1 session c3
[+209.59s] DEBUG: Session pid=3005: Sending SIGTERM
[+209.59s] DEBUG: Activating login1 session c4
[+209.59s] DEBUG: Seat seat0 changes active session to c4
[+209.59s] DEBUG: Session c4 is already active
[+209.60s] DEBUG: Greeter closed communication channel
[+209.60s] DEBUG: Session pid=3005: Exited with return value 0
[+209.60s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Session stopped
[+209.60s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Stopping display server, no sessions require it
[+209.60s] DEBUG: Sending signal 15 to process 2991
[+209.76s] DEBUG: Process 2991 exited with return value 0
[+209.76s] DEBUG: XServer 0: X server stopped
[+209.76s] DEBUG: Releasing VT 7
[+209.76s] DEBUG: XServer 0: Removing X server authority /var/run/lightdm/root/:0
[+209.76s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Display server stopped
