Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

BollerwagenPicard · 2026-04-07 23:20:43

Hi everyone,

I'm reaching out because my Cinnamon desktop environment is completely broken after today's system update on Arch Linux. After logging in via GDM, I'm presented with nothing but the desktop wallpaper. No panel, no menu, no desktop icons. Right-clicking the desktop does nothing.

System Environment:

Kernel: 6.19.11-arch1-1
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 (GA106 / LHR)
Driver: nvidia-open-dkms 595.58.03-1 (DKMS status: installed/active)
Display Manager: GDM 50.0-1
Major Package Upgrades (Today):
- glib2: 2.86.5-1 -> 2.88.0-1
- gjs: 2:1.86.0-2 -> 2:1.88.0-1
- gtk4: 1:4.20.4-1 -> 1:4.22.2-1
- mutter: 49.5-1 -> 50.0-1
- gnome-shell: 1:49.5-1 -> 1:50.0-1
Cinnamon/Muffin: cinnamon 6.6.7-2, muffin 6.6.3-1

Detailed Symptoms & Logs:

1. GJS / GObject Error:
When trying to start Cinnamon manually from an SSH session using DISPLAY=:0 cinnamon --replace, I get the following crash:

Cjs-Message: 00:48:14.065: JS LOG: [LookingGlass/error] GObject_Object.prototype._init called on incompatible Object
Cjs-Message: 00:48:14.065: JS LOG: [LookingGlass/trace] 
<----------------
_init@/usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/overrides.js:33:22

Looking at /usr/share/cinnamon/js/ui/overrides.js, it seems to fail at originalInit.call(this, ...arguments);. This points to an incompatibility with the newly rolled out GJS 1.88.0-1 (GNOME 50 stack).

2. Backend Conflict (Device or resource busy):
The journal shows that Cinnamon fails to take control of the backend:

cinnamon[4684]: Failed to create backend: Could not take control: GDBus.Error:System.Error.EBUSY: Device or resource busy

3. Wayland vs. X11 Confusion:
Despite being on an X11 session (verified via ps aux | grep Xorg), cinnamon-screensaver and other components log:

cinnamon-screensaver[4745]: cinnamon-screensaver is disabled in wayland sessions. Exiting.

Even with WaylandEnable=false set in /etc/gdm/custom.conf, loginctl show-session occasionally reports Type=wayland for the graphical session.

4. Kernel Verification:
I've checked the kernel logs (journalctl -k -b -p err..crit) and dmesg. The graphics stack is clean:

[Tue Apr  7 23:50:09 2026] nvidia_uvm: loaded in non-exclusive mode
[Tue Apr  7 23:50:10 2026] input: HDA NVidia HDMI/DP,pcm=3 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/0000:03:00.1/sound/card0/input22

There are no NVIDIA Xid errors, no GPU timeouts, and no segmentation faults in the logs.

The "opensc.module" Update Issue:
During the update, I encountered a file conflict with /usr/share/p11-kit/modules/opensc.module (owned by opensc and previously opensc-p11-kit-module). To finish the update, I had to manually move the module to a backup. Since then, cinnamon-settings-daemon-smartcard fails to start:

[cinnamon-settings-daemon-smartcard] Failed to start: no suitable smartcard driver could be found

What I've tried:

Set WaylandEnable=false in /etc/gdm/custom.conf.
Reinstalled cinnamon, muffin, and cinnamon-session.
Reset all Cinnamon GSettings via gsettings reset-recursively org.cinnamon.
Disabled all 3rd party extensions, applets, and desklets.
Removed the deprecated opensc-p11-kit-module package.
Attempted to start cinnamon2d (software rendering), but it fails with the same GJS error.

Is anyone else using Cinnamon on the latest GNOME 50 / GJS 1.88 stack? Is this a known breaking change in GJS that requires a Cinnamon patch, or is my session somehow stuck in a half-wayland/half-x11 state that GDM 50 is causing?

Any advice on how to debug this further or if there's a workaround (besides downgrading the whole GNOME stack) would be greatly appreciated!

Scimmia · 2026-04-07 23:48:08

BollerwagenPicard wrote:

[*]Set WaylandEnable=false in /etc/gdm/custom.conf.[/*]

I don't have an answer for you about Cinnamon, but X11 support was completely removed from all GNOME components with version 50.

What session are you choosing in GDM, exactly? As far as I can see, cinnamon provides 3.

clfarron4 · 2026-04-08 02:17:42

BollerwagenPicard wrote:

Hi everyone,
I'm reaching out because my Cinnamon desktop environment is completely broken after today's system update on Arch Linux. After logging in via GDM, I'm presented with nothing but the desktop wallpaper. No panel, no menu, no desktop icons. Right-clicking the desktop does nothing.

It's 3am as I type this, so my comment isn't going to provide much information but:

- when logging into Cinnamon X11 from GDM, I also get nothing but a desktop wallpaper. Additional, I have no response to any inputs. No keyboard response, no mouse response.
- when logging into Cinnamon Wayland from GDM, it works as I use it, but I don't use the screensaver so I can't tell you anything about that. I have my own issue that Cinnamon on Wayland uses llvmpipe as the OpenGL renderer instead of the AMD GPU drivers for my 6700XT, but that's not related to this.
- I haven't yet tried Cinnamon X11 (Software Rendering)

This is all directly logging on at the computer.

ajgringo619 · 2026-04-08 02:28:17

Have you tried another DM? I've had great results with Ly (TUI-based DM).

clfarron4 · 2026-04-08 02:54:21

ajgringo619 wrote:

Have you tried another DM? I've had great results with Ly (TUI-based DM).

Good shout. Tried with LightDM and the Cinnamon (X11) session now "works" (not fully tested).

Now I sleep.

seth · 2026-04-08 07:34:37

Do you have a journal covering that situation?
Afaiu GDM/gnome-shell exclusively runs on wayland since v49 but GDM is very much still supposed to be able to start X11 sessions.

BollerwagenPicard · 2026-04-08 07:41:23

As suggested in the thread, switching the Display Manager from GDM 50 to LightDM solved the issue. It seems GDM 50 has major issues with Cinnamon's X11 session initialization, even with

WaylandEnable=false

.

sudo pacman -S lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
sudo systemctl disable gdm
sudo systemctl enable --now lightdm

After switching, Cinnamon (X11) loads perfectly with all panels and applets functional. Thanks for the help!

Journal log showing GDM 50 / Cinnamon X11 failure:

-- X11 Session starts correctly via GDM --
Apr 07 23:50:33 MasterSystem /usr/lib/gdm-x-session[4429]: /etc/gdm/Xsession: Setup done, will execute: cinnamon-session-cinnamon

-- Cinnamon fails to take control of the backend --
Apr 07 23:50:35 MasterSystem cinnamon[4684]: Failed to create backend: Could not take control: GDBus.Error:System.Error.EBUSY: Device or resource busy

-- Components incorrectly detect Wayland session --
Apr 07 23:50:35 MasterSystem cinnamon-screensaver[4745]: cinnamon-screensaver is disabled in wayland sessions. Exiting.
Apr 07 23:50:35 MasterSystem fingerprint-polkit-agent.desktop[4746]: Failed to create wl_display (No such file or directory)

-- Session manager times out --
Apr 08 00:36:30 MasterSystem cinnamon-session-binary[46910]: CRITICAL: t+30.52160s: Unable to start session: A program required by the session failed to start. App ID: 'cinnamon2d.desktop'.

This happened even with

WaylandEnable=false

in /etc/gdm/custom.conf and selecting the "Cinnamon" (non-Wayland) entry in GDM.

seth · 2026-04-08 07:53:42

WaylandEnable=false

As Scimmia pointed out: this is completely inert

fails to take control

Failed to *create* backend

Please don't paraphrase, https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=57855
Post the complete journal, randomly annotated random lines will provide little insight into what's going on - but it seems to relate to the session bus?

BollerwagenPicard · 2026-04-08 09:29:00

https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code … hTURHI4YMy with the Password ArchLinux

seth · 2026-04-08 15:38:53

Apr 07 23:50:29 localhost gdm-password][3456]: pam_unix(gdm-password:session): session opened for user user(uid=1000) by user(uid=0)
Apr 07 23:50:29 localhost systemd-logind[1407]: New session '3' of user 'user' with class 'user' and type 'wayland'.
Apr 07 23:50:29 localhost (systemd)[4056]: pam_unix(systemd-user:session): session opened for user user(uid=1000) by user(uid=0)
Apr 07 23:50:29 localhost systemd-logind[1407]: New session '4' of user 'user' with class 'manager' and type 'unspecified'.
Apr 07 23:50:30 localhost systemd[1]: Started Session 3 of User user.
Apr 07 23:50:30 localhost systemd[4056]: Created slice User Core Session Slice.
Apr 07 23:50:30 localhost dbus-broker-launch[4073]: Policy to allow eavesdropping in /usr/share/dbus-1/session.conf +31: Eavesdropping is deprecated and ignored
Apr 07 23:50:30 localhost dbus-broker-launch[4073]: Policy to allow eavesdropping in /usr/share/dbus-1/session.conf +33: Eavesdropping is deprecated and ignored
Apr 07 23:50:32 localhost /usr/lib/gdm-x-session[4265]: (--) Log file renamed from "/home/user/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.pid-4265.log" to "/home/user/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.0.log"
Apr 07 23:50:32 localhost /usr/lib/gdm-x-session[4265]: X.Org X Server 127.0.0.1

I suppose the wayland environment gets leaked into the user session before gdm-x-session is started and then everything (at least Qt and GTK) thinks "this is a wayland session so use the wayland backend" which doesn't work because there's no WL socket.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/is … te_2464911

The current status of main is that it can't launch x11 sessions yet, but the plan is restore that functionality before 49.rc (or to revert the x11 build default for GDM if it turns out harder than expected).

This was reverted for 49 and it seems never got re-addressed before completely removing X11 for gnome.

Thanks for the confirmation, tl;dr - don't use GDM if you plan to start X11 session.
As a matter of fact, probably don't use GDM if you plan to start anything but gnome.

Sidebar: if "localhost" is your actual hostname you might want to change that to avoid hostname collisions in the LAN (NM will happily alter your hostname, breaking every running hostname sensitive process - which is maybe surprisingly much, incl. X11)

andreworg · 2026-04-08 17:35:47

I suspect I somehow fall into this case; after the latest update (10 mins ago) I logged in into my X11 session just fine, but chromium would not start:

ERROR:ui/ozone/platform/wayland/host/wayland_connection.cc:202] Failed to connect to Wayland

I found out that I had

XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland

in my environment.

Setting it to x11 in a terminal and starting chromium from there solved the chromium issue.
I can confirm I am running GDM 50.0, probably since the update.

I'm now switching to whatever else and I'm going to blacklist every package beginning with "g". Oh, wait.

clfarron4 · 2026-04-08 17:50:24

seth wrote:

I suppose the wayland environment gets leaked into the user session before gdm-x-session is started and then everything (at least Qt and GTK) thinks "this is a wayland session so use the wayland backend" which doesn't work because there's no WL socket.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/is … te_2464911

I did a search for Wayland in my journalctl logs from a GDM 50 into Cinnamon (X11) login and I found this.

Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-session-i[1755]: Starting GNOME session target: gnome-session-wayland@gnome-login.target
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Created slice app-gnome\x2dsession\x2dmanager.slice.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Reached target gnome-session-wayland.target.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Reached target org.gnome.Shell.target.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Starting gnome-session-monitor.service...
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Starting xdg-user-dirs.service...
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Finished xdg-user-dirs.service.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Started gnome-session-monitor.service.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Reached target graphical-session-pre.target.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Reached target gnome-session-pre.target.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Starting gnome-session-manager@gnome-login.service...
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Started gnome-session-manager@gnome-login.service.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Reached target gnome-session-manager.target.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1737]: Starting org.gnome.Shell@wayland.service...
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Running GNOME Shell (using mutter 49.5) as a Wayland display server
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Enabling experimental feature 'scale-monitor-framebuffer'
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Enabling experimental feature 'variable-refresh-rate'
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Enabling experimental feature 'xwayland-native-scaling'
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1]: Starting rtkit-daemon.service...
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch systemd[1]: Started rtkit-daemon.service.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch rtkit-daemon[1789]: Handling system-suspend using logind.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch rtkit-daemon[1789]: Successfully made thread 1788 of process 1773 owned by '60578' high priority at nice level -15.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Thread 'KMS thread' will be using high priority scheduling
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Device '/dev/dri/card1' prefers shadow buffer
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Added device '/dev/dri/card1' (amdgpu) using atomic mode setting.
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Created gbm renderer for '/dev/dri/card1'
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Boot VGA GPU /dev/dri/card1 selected as primary
Apr 08 01:19:27 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Obtained a high priority EGL context
Apr 08 01:19:28 arch systemd[1737]: Starting at-spi-dbus-bus.service...
Apr 08 01:19:28 arch systemd[1737]: Started at-spi-dbus-bus.service.
Apr 08 01:19:28 arch dbus-broker-launch[1841]: Ready
Apr 08 01:19:28 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Using public X11 display :1024, (using :1025 for managed services)
Apr 08 01:19:28 arch gnome-shell[1773]: Using Wayland display name 'wayland-0'

Why is this here? Why are you trying to start up Gnome Shell (Wayland) when I asked for Cinnamon? And there are many more references to Wayland.

But these are the only references to Wayland when logging into Cinnamon (X11) using sddm:

Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm[1664]: Greeter session started successfully
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: High-DPI autoscaling Enabled
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Reading from "/usr/local/share/wayland-sessions/cinnamon-wayland.desktop"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Reading from "/usr/share/wayland-sessions/cinnamon-wayland.desktop"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Reading from "/usr/local/share/wayland-sessions/gnome.desktop"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Reading from "/usr/share/wayland-sessions/gnome.desktop"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Reading from "/usr/local/share/xsessions/cinnamon.desktop"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Reading from "/usr/share/xsessions/cinnamon.desktop"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Reading from "/usr/local/share/xsessions/cinnamon2d.desktop"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Reading from "/usr/share/xsessions/cinnamon2d.desktop"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch sddm-greeter[1714]: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/sugar-dark/theme.conf"
Apr 08 04:29:39 arch systemd[1702]: Created slice session.slice.

It definitely seems like they've code GDM to hard look for a Wayland session no matter what as soon as GTK is detected.

seth · 2026-04-08 19:52:27

Why are you trying to start up Gnome Shell (Wayland) when I asked for Cinnamon?

"You"? Me??

But that might just be GDM which is a specialized gnome shell (would require context to be confirmed)

seth wrote:

tl;dr - don't use GDM if you plan to start X11 session.
As a matter of fact, probably don't use GDM if you plan to start anything but gnome.

BollerwagenPicard · 2026-04-11 10:57:36

sounds like a 50/50 for my 2nd computer

SeagullFish · 2026-04-12 13:24:28

I had the same issue. However, I had both the Cinnamon and Gnome DE’s installed simultaneously. Thus, I was able to log in to a Gnome session and troubleshoot the issue from there.

BollerwagenPicard wrote:

sudo pacman -S lightdm lightdm-gtk-greeter
sudo systemctl disable gdm
sudo systemctl enable --now lightdm

Thank you for describing in such detail what you did. This was very helpful for me. However, I assume that you were running Linux in a non-graphical session. I did not realize this, and tried to execute the same commands from a terminal emulator within the Gnome session. The «--now» option seemingly caused a bit messy situation. I am not sure whether LightDM was run on top of Gnome, or if my Gnome session was terminated before running LightDM. Regardless, I was unable to log into any session. Fortunately, this was resolved after a reboot, and I lost no unsaved data.

seth wrote:

I suppose the wayland environment gets leaked into the user session before gdm-x-session is started and then everything (at least Qt and GTK) thinks "this is a wayland session so use the wayland backend" which doesn't work because there's no WL socket.
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/is … te_2464911
The current status of main is that it can't launch x11 sessions yet, but the plan is restore that functionality before 49.rc (or to revert the x11 build default for GDM if it turns out harder than expected).
This was reverted for 49 and it seems never got re-addressed before completely removing X11 for gnome.

Have you found any traces of information that could indicate whether the issue was intentionally disregarded, or if it was forgot to be re-addressed by mistake? The discussion seemingly ended 9 months ago, without any clear decision on what strategy they should focus on going forward.

seth wrote:

Thanks for the confirmation, tl;dr - don't use GDM if you plan to start X11 session.
As a matter of fact, probably don't use GDM if you plan to start anything but gnome.

Also, I am not sure if using LightDM to start a Gnome session is the best choice either. Directly after my first login to Gnome from LightDM, I got a brief error message (popup toast) about Gnome being unable to run screensaver due to missing Wayland components or something like that. Unfortunately, the error message disappeared too fast before I had time to read it completely and write it down. I have not been able to reproduce it either. I also notice a statement from the web site you mentioned:

Yep, this is extra important as without gdm, gnome lock screen is broken [...]

seth · 2026-04-12 13:55:56

Also, I am not sure if using LightDM to start a Gnome session is the best choice either.

Yes, Gnome hard depends on GDM (eg. for the screenlocker) - you're effectively forced to choose between gnome and not-gnome (in particular wrt X11) now.

Have you found any traces of information that could indicate whether the issue was intentionally disregarded

No, I also haven't looked - from gnome's track record expect something between hubris and malice and filing bug reports is a waste of time

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/bl … type=heads
Should be /etc/gdm/Xsession - try to fix XDG_SESSION_TYPE and unset WAYLAND_DISPLAY there

Archiboldo · Yesterday 10:10:36

Hello,
I have the same problem here and I found something inside the GDM repo

50.alpha
==========
...
...

* Entirely removed X11 support, except for the ability to launch other desktops'
  X11 sessions with a per-user X server. This means that features like XDCMP and
  system-wide Xserver are gone, and that GDM's own sessions will always run with
  Wayland.

source:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gdm/-/bl … type=heads

LightDM or SDDM are fine.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-04-07 23:20:43

Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#2 2026-04-07 23:48:08

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#3 2026-04-08 02:17:42

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#4 2026-04-08 02:28:17

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#5 2026-04-08 02:54:21

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#6 2026-04-08 07:34:37

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#7 2026-04-08 07:41:23

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#8 2026-04-08 07:53:42

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#9 2026-04-08 09:29:00

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#10 2026-04-08 15:38:53

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#11 2026-04-08 17:35:47

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#12 2026-04-08 17:50:24

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#13 2026-04-08 19:52:27

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#14 2026-04-11 10:57:36

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#15 2026-04-12 13:24:28

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#16 2026-04-12 13:55:56

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

#17 Yesterday 10:10:36

Re: Cinnamon (X11) fails to load after update

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