Latest update broke CachyOS, system is crashing, not able to boot

[mr-infinexus]

Did a system update, after that can’t boot into system, need to do hard shutdown by unplugging the battery of my laptop

Writing this from a pre-update snapshot

These were updated

❯ sudo pacman -Syu
[sudo] password for mrinfinexus:
Place your finger on the fingerprint reader
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 cachyos-v3 is up to date
 cachyos-core-v3 is up to date
 cachyos-extra-v3 is up to date
 cachyos is up to date
 core is up to date
 extra is up to date
 multilib is up to date
:: Starting full system upgrade...
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Package (32)                             Old Version        New Version        Net Change

cachyos/archlinux-keyring                20260409-2         20260420-1           0.01 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/babl                    0.1.124-1.1        0.1.126-1.1          0.00 MiB
cachyos-core-v3/ca-certificates-mozilla  3.122-1.1          3.123-1.1           -0.08 MiB
extra/discord                            1:0.0.133-1        1:0.0.134-1         -0.19 MiB
extra/gimp                               3.2.2-1            3.2.4-1              0.55 MiB
extra/glances                            4.5.3.2-1          4.5.4-1              0.06 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/harfbuzz                14.1.0-1.1         14.2.0-1.1           0.06 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/harfbuzz-icu            14.1.0-1.1         14.2.0-1.1           0.00 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/imagemagick             7.1.2.19-1.1       7.1.2.21-1.1         0.00 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/jemalloc                1:5.3.1-1.1        1:5.3.1-2.1         -1.62 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/jq                      1.8.1-2.1          1.8.1-3.1            0.01 MiB
multilib/lib32-harfbuzz                  14.1.0-1           14.2.0-1             0.00 MiB
multilib/lib32-libnghttp2                1.68.1-1           1.69.0-1             0.00 MiB
multilib/lib32-libxml2                   2.15.2-1           2.15.3-1             0.00 MiB
multilib/lib32-nss                       3.122-1            3.123-1              0.00 MiB
extra/libimagequant                      4.4.1-1            4.4.1-2             -0.03 MiB
cachyos-core-v3/libnghttp2               1.68.1-1.1         1.69.0-1.1           0.00 MiB
extra/libqaccessibilityclient-qt6        0.6.0-3            0.6.0-4              0.00 MiB
cachyos-core-v3/libxml2                  2.15.2-1.1         2.15.3-1.1           0.00 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/libxpm                  3.5.18-1.1         3.5.19-1.1           0.01 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/md4c                    0.5.2-2.1          0.5.3-1.1            0.00 MiB
core/mdadm                               4.6-1              4.6-2                0.00 MiB
cachyos/mesa                             2:26.0.5-2         2:26.0.5-3           0.00 MiB
cachyos-core-v3/nss                      3.122-1.1          3.123-1.1            0.01 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/perl-xml-parser         2.56-1.1           2.57-1.1             0.01 MiB
cachyos/proton-cachyos-slr               1:10.0.20260408-1  1:10.0.20260409-1    0.00 MiB
extra/python-fido2                       2.1.1-1            2.2.0-1              0.09 MiB
extra/python-idna                        3.11-2             3.12-1              -0.34 MiB
extra/qt6-webengine                      6.11.0-4           6.11.0-5             0.01 MiB
extra/virtualbox                         7.2.6-4            7.2.8-1              0.05 MiB
extra/virtualbox-host-dkms               7.2.6-4            7.2.8-1              0.09 MiB
cachyos-extra-v3/wayland                 1.24.0-1.1         1.25.0-1.1           0.02 MiB

Total Installed Size:  2577.00 MiB
Net Upgrade Size:        -1.27 MiB

Bug report is attached, errors are present in the `journalctl of previous boot` section
❯ sudo cachyos-bugreport.sh
https://paste.cachyos.org/p/c11c9da.log

[IAmHugh]

Welcome aboard. My suggestion would be to try the updates again cause odds are the issue won’t reoccur. Just got most of those updates on my roommates machine earlier and all seems good there after rebooting it. If on the off chance it does occur again you can rollback

[veitw]

Hello, I ran into the same problem this afternoon and didn’t know what causedit. I’m on Garuda runing linux-cachyos 7.0.0-1 from AUR.
I think it is the vboxhost dkms module that is causing the breakage of the initramfs. All other Kernel run fine, mainline as well.

❯ dkms status
vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE, 6.18.23-1-lts, x86_64: installed
vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE, 6.19.12-arch1-1, x86_64: installed
vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE, 6.19.12-zen1-1-zen, x86_64: installed
vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE, 7.0.0-1-cachyos, x86_64: installed (Original modules exist)
vboxhost/7.2.8_OSE, 7.0.0-1-mainline, x86_64: installed

[shinji257]

Looks like the issue is 7.2.8 broke things in the cachyos kernel. It also breaks cachyos-lts so I actually had to rollback to get to a workable state. Now I’m installing a few non-cachyos kernels just to have as a failsafe.

[mr-infinexus]

Thanks a lot !
I believe virtualbox-host-dkms 7.2.8 was indeed the cause
Restored to an older snapshot and removed virtualbox completely and it solved the issue

[UjjawalK]

This is the coredump list

TIME                           PID  UID  GID SIG     COREFILE     EXE                                         SIZE
Mon 2026-04-20 12:11:18 IST   2251 1000 1000 SIGABRT present      /usr/lib/org_kde_powerdevil                 1.4M
Tue 2026-04-21 18:39:47 IST   2256 1000 1000 SIGABRT present      /usr/lib/org_kde_powerdevil                 1.8M
Tue 2026-04-21 19:43:11 IST   1810  959  959 SIGABRT inaccessible /usr/bin/wireplumber                           -
Wed 2026-04-22 00:42:49 IST   1839  959  959 SIGABRT missing      /usr/bin/wireplumber                           -
Wed 2026-04-22 00:43:01 IST   2217 1000 1000 SIGSEGV missing      /usr/bin/plasmashell                           -
Wed 2026-04-22 02:23:05 IST 426375 1000 1000 SIGSEGV present      /usr/bin/filelight                         40.3M

[giancanuz]

this is my workaround:

Black screen after system update

since I don’t need vbox all the time, I blacklisted those modules in cachyos-kernel grub menuentry: module_blacklist=vboxdrv,vboxnetflt,vboxnetadp,vboxpci with something like: sudo sed -i "s//vmlinuz-linux-cachyos//vmlinuz-linux-cachyos module_blacklist=vboxdrv,vboxnetflt,vboxnetadp,vboxpci /g" /boot/grub/grub.cfg Preventing driver load virtualbox will not work. In my system I can reboot and choose a standard/zen arch kernel (6.19) if I need to run virtualbox.

[maroma]

Having the same problem. Since i do need virtualbox constantly I blocked the installation of
virtualbox 7.2.6-4 → 7.2.8-1
virtualbox-guest-iso 7.2.6-1 → 7.2.8-1
virtualbox-host-dkms 7.2.6-4 → 7.2.8-1
by adding “IgnorePkg = virtualbox*” to the /etc/pacman.conf under options.
So waiting for better times…

[JBinFla]

Thanks for the tip. I am not wanting to uninstall Virtualbox, but don’t use it often so I did the same… Hopefully when I go to use it again and it doesn’t work I’ll remember what I did

[maroma]

as of today the virtualbox update works again for me, no more boot problems.