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fluidsynth package halts boot at entering default runlevel

The fluidsynth package is installed by vlc-plugins-all but it can cause a lock up during boot, using OpenRC, it gets to "entering default runlevel" onscreen then freezes, and it's not possible to switch to a TTY. "pacman -Rdd fluidsynth" (removing only that one package) fixes it. Don't know why - this is on an alsa only set up, perhaps it is some pulseaudio or pipewire dependency?
(fluidsynth-alsa doesn't seem to have this problem from initial testing.)

Re: fluidsynth package halts boot at entering default runlevel

Reply #1 –
After updating today I got the same frozen system at the same point. But this time it went away after downgrading pacman-contrib. So after it booted OK, I ran -Syu again and downgraded pacman-contrib before shutting down. Now it won't reboot at all, even after downgrading everything that was upgraded that last time and removing the few extra new packages. The fallback initramfs doesn't help for the current Linux Zen kernel I use, nor does an old 6.1.12.artix1-1 kernel I had on there as a backup, and there are no errors in dmesg. rsyslog quit working recently after a glibc upgrade broke it, even with a rebuild, so that was no help and nothing gets logged in rc.log when the boot fails. It is an illogical problem, there is something unusual happening. btrfs scrub showed no errors, and I saw the original fluidsynth problem on another HP desktop with Intel GPU initially, then it appeared on my Dell M4500 with Nvidia graphics a few days later after another upgrade, now it is back after upgrading today, but worse now it seems because it's apparently done something to stop it booting permanently.
I have disabled additional services in local and for rsyslogd and removed the package entirely in case it was causing issues, didn't help.

Re: fluidsynth package halts boot at entering default runlevel

Reply #2 –
Well no sooner than being totally baffled, coming here must have inspired me, I checked package integrity with paccheck --md5sum --quiet and found a mismatch on /etc/init.d/clamd from clamav-openrc and it rebooted OK after reinstalling that! But why when it hadn't been touched by any recent update?

Re: fluidsynth package halts boot at entering default runlevel

Reply #3 –
To avoid bringing in even more fresh updates to make downgrading harder, today I tried running -Su (no y) while offline. Re - upgrading these packages caused the system hang / freeze at starting default, although this time paccheck said things were normal. Downgrading and removing the extras as a block fixed it, but I haven't isolated any one of them as a cause so far:
Code: [Select]
[2025-08-30T14:43:51+0100] [ALPM] transaction started
[2025-08-30T14:43:51+0100] [ALPM] upgraded abseil-cpp (20250512.1-1 -> 20250814.0-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:51+0100] [ALPM] upgraded libudev (257.8-1 -> 257.8-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:51+0100] [ALPM] upgraded ca-certificates-mozilla (3.115-1 -> 3.115.1-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:51+0100] [ALPM] upgraded libsysprof-capture (48.0-7 -> 48.1-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:51+0100] [ALPM] upgraded artools-base (0.37.1-1 -> 0.37.3-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:52+0100] [ALPM] upgraded avahi (1:0.8+r194+g3f79789-3 -> 1:0.9rc2-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:54+0100] [ALPM] upgraded cmake (4.0.3-1 -> 4.1.1-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:54+0100] [ALPM] upgraded dvd+rw-tools (7.1-11 -> 7.1-12)
[2025-08-30T14:43:54+0100] [ALPM] upgraded esysusers (257.8-1 -> 257.8-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:54+0100] [ALPM] upgraded etmpfiles (257.8-1 -> 257.8-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:54+0100] [ALPM] upgraded nss (3.115-1 -> 3.115.1-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:54+0100] [ALPM] upgraded harfbuzz (11.4.3-1 -> 11.4.4-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:54+0100] [ALPM] upgraded mesa (1:25.2.1-2 -> 1:25.2.1-4)
[2025-08-30T14:43:55+0100] [ALPM] upgraded firefox (142.0-1 -> 142.0.1-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:55+0100] [ALPM] upgraded ghostscript (10.05.1-2 -> 10.05.1-3)
[2025-08-30T14:43:55+0100] [ALPM] upgraded gstreamer (1.26.5-1 -> 1.26.5-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:56+0100] [ALPM] upgraded gst-plugins-base-libs (1.26.5-1 -> 1.26.5-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded gst-plugins-bad-libs (1.26.5-1 -> 1.26.5-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded gst-plugin-gtk (1.26.5-1 -> 1.26.5-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded gst-plugins-base (1.26.5-1 -> 1.26.5-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded harfbuzz-icu (11.4.3-1 -> 11.4.4-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded imath (3.1.12-4 -> 3.2.1-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded lib32-harfbuzz (11.4.3-1 -> 11.4.4-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded lib32-libgcrypt (1.11.1-1 -> 1.11.2-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded udev (257.8-1 -> 257.8-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] upgraded libinput (1.29.0-1 -> 1.29.1-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] installed liboggz (1.1.3-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] installed wxwidgets-common (3.2.8.1-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:57+0100] [ALPM] installed wxwidgets-gtk3 (3.2.8.1-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:58+0100] [ALPM] installed python-wxpython (1:4.2.3-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:58+0100] [ALPM] upgraded libkate (0.4.1-11 -> 0.4.3-1)
[2025-08-30T14:43:59+0100] [ALPM] upgraded openexr (3.3.5-1 -> 3.3.5-2)
[2025-08-30T14:43:59+0100] [ALPM] upgraded protobuf (31.1-2 -> 32.0-1)
[2025-08-30T14:44:00+0100] [ALPM] upgraded opencv (4.12.0-2 -> 4.12.0-4)
[2025-08-30T14:44:00+0100] [ALPM] upgraded libraqm (0.10.2-1 -> 0.10.3-1)
[2025-08-30T14:44:00+0100] [ALPM] upgraded libopenshot (0.4.0-10 -> 0.4.0-11)
[2025-08-30T14:44:00+0100] [ALPM] upgraded libtracefs (1.8.2-1 -> 1.8.2-2)
[2025-08-30T14:44:00+0100] [ALPM] upgraded meson (1.8.4-1 -> 1.9.0-1)
[2025-08-30T14:44:00+0100] [ALPM] upgraded pacman-contrib (1.12.0-1 -> 1.13.0-1)
[2025-08-30T14:44:01+0100] [ALPM] transaction completed
 

Re: fluidsynth package halts boot at entering default runlevel

Reply #4 –
Setting this in /etc/rc.conf  (the main OpenRC config file):
rc_parallel="NO"

seems to have fixed things. There were various other 'fixes' that worked to some degree at times, upgrading, downgrading or removing various packages or combinations of them, using manual login for startx rather than autologin in /etc/conf.d/agetty.tty1, but with parallel boot disabled it works with all the packages updated to the problem point with both manual and auto login. It might have been an OpenRC  boot race condition, and the corrupted init file was due to it being accessed when the OS crashed one time.
I haven't tested much or replaced all that I removed and updated to current, so that solution isn't 100% certain, but it's looking promising.

Re: fluidsynth package halts boot at entering default runlevel

Reply #5 –
FWIW - I am not experiencing this problem and have that package in vlc.  I just did updates and rebooted to make sure.  I have no idea what it would have to do with booting or start up.  Disabling parallel booting undoes a major advantage to openrc.  I would like to know why you system suffers this problem and not mine.  Maybe others are experiencing this and can add insight to what is troubling your system.

Re: fluidsynth package halts boot at entering default runlevel

Reply #6 –
Race conditions are very specific to the hardware in use and the software installed, and services configured to run at boot, to get different apps to try to use the same resource at the same time. This is why installing or updating random things was fixing it, because it was altering the timing. Both machines affected by this used regular  SSD's, while the other has an NVME drive. They all have similar but not identical setups in terms of software. Also only certain CPU's / GPU's / hard drives might have the possibility of actions that aren't thread safe being carried out, because different drivers or code sections of the same drivers are used. It's quite likely not a simple cause and effect, rather than being directly related to fluidsynth, pacman-contrib, or getty autologin.