Sorry about that, in my rush, I forgot about the code tags.
I do regularly keep my system up to date (pacman -Syu on the daily). So I doubt that would be the issue.
I am unfamiliar with the /etc/pam.d directory but am looking at it now, I find no pacnew files using ls -liash in there but do see some lightdm files...
lightdm
#%PAM-1.0
auth include system-login
-auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so
account include system-login
password include system-login
session include system-login
-session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start
lightdm-autologin
#%PAM-1.0
auth required pam_env.so
auth required pam_faillock.so preauth
auth required pam_shells.so
auth required pam_nologin.so
auth [success=1 default=ignore] pam_succeed_if.so user ingroup autologin
auth required pam_unix.so
auth required pam_permit.so
-auth optional pam_gnome_keyring.so
account include system-local-login
password include system-local-login
session include system-local-login
-session optional pam_gnome_keyring.so auto_start
lightdm-greeter
#%PAM-1.0
# Load environment from /etc/environment and ~/.pam_environment
auth required pam_env.so
# Always let the greeter start without authentication
auth required pam_permit.so
# No action required for account management
account required pam_permit.so
# Can't change password
password required pam_deny.so
# Setup session
session required pam_unix.so
session optional pam_elogind.so
In all honesty I don't know what to look for within each of these files. Any help would again, be greatly appreciated. And thank you for everything thus far!
EDIT:
Thanks, just checked it and yes, I have those as my last three lines in the system-login file.
NOTE: Everything works fine now technically (elogind is up, and there's no explanation as to why it went down in the first place).
But I have been having issues with lightdm-greeter not showing up and instead bringing me to a blank black screen with a cursor, but no input allowed. I was able to temporarily solve this by simply reinitializing my initramfs and updating grub. The problem persists, however, usually after a few hours of leaving the computer completely shut off. nous suggested in another thread that I simply remove lightdm, but I'd like to avoid that if at all possible.