# Rocky Linux wont Boot

**URL:** <https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223>\
**Category:** Rocky Linux Help & Support\
**Tags:** rocky-linux-9\
**Created:** [July 26, 2024, 6:40am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223 "2024-07-26T06:40:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 15\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![stevejjd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@stevejjd](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/stevejjd)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 6:40am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/1 "2024-07-26T06:40:40Z")

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Hi all,  
I have been building my Rocky Linux 9.4 working environment happily for some time until today… My Rocky Linux 9.4 operating system boots up into a black screen with the following text

[FAILED] Failed to start HQueue Client.  
[FAILED] Failed to start HQueue Server.

- 

Here is a link to a video depicting my problem.

> **[IMG\_3976.MOV](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dJA5rnuPhnTqxWLERvpvi9nJzoXo3wUY/view?usp=sharing)**
>
> Google Drive file.

Im trying not to panic. I have no idea this problem could happen. I had a fully operational version of Linux that took me weeks to build. I installed Houdini Launcher and using Launcher installed HQeue. I rebooted my PC and now it’s not booting into Linux properly.

If you have any advice, I would greatly appreciate it.  
Steve

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**Author:** ![gerry666uk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/dbc845/32.png) [@gerry666uk](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/gerry666uk)\
**Post date:** [July 26, 2024, 6:21pm UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/2 "2024-07-26T18:21:51Z")

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Are you sure that all the packages you have installed are from the official Rocky repos?

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**Author:** ![guyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/838e76/32.png) [@guyr](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/guyr)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2024, 7:51am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/3 "2024-07-31T07:51:57Z")

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I don’t know anything about Houdini, but try going in either under an earlier kernel or rescue mode, and disabling or removing Houdini. It’s apparently not working.

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**Author:** ![stevejjd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@stevejjd](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/stevejjd)\
**Post date:** [August 5, 2024, 3:40am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/4 "2024-08-05T03:40:47Z")

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Thanks for the suggestions but it all seems beyond my skill level to fix. I keep breaking Linux. I can’t get a stable run to complete my project. Thanks for trying to help.

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**Author:** ![stevejjd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@stevejjd](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/stevejjd)\
**Post date:** [August 8, 2024, 7:00am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/5 "2024-08-08T07:00:07Z")

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I was getting warnings about some path running out of disk space, even though I had plenty of disk space available. Maybe I ran out of disk space which buggered the system

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**Author:** ![stevejjd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@stevejjd](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/stevejjd)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 5:05am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/6 "2024-08-12T05:05:28Z")

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I figured out the issue.

booted into a bootable Linux Mint usb drive and ran the boot repair tool. I created a boot info text file. [Boot-Info\_20240812\_0457.txt - Google Drive](https://drive.google.com/file/d/19Ir40znl0EP2d5_5CwXkKICjNKfmBZh-/view?usp=sharing)

Boot Repair says  
The /dev/mapper/rl-root (Rocky Linux 9.4 (Blue Onyx)) partition is nearly full. This can prevent to start it. Please use the file browser that just opened to delete unused files (or transfer them to another disk). Close this window when you have finished.

Im not able to clean the partition to free up data because of permissions. So Boot Repair says:  
The /dev/mapper/rl-root (Rocky Linux 9.4 (Blue Onyx)) partition is still full. This can prevent to start it (e.g. you may get a Power Manager error).

and then finally Boot Repair says;  
Please enable a repository containing the [grub-efi] packages in the software sources of Rocky Linux 9.4 (Blue Onyx) (/dev/mapper/rl-root). Then try again.

So, how can I fix this issue?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stevejjd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@stevejjd](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/stevejjd)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 5:07am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/7 "2024-08-12T05:07:41Z")

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Do you think it would be better to just recover my working files and reinstall Linux?

That doesn’t solve the issue though, this insane problem of important partitions running out of space, how do we fix it?

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**Author:** ![hs303](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47774/32.png) [@hs303](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/hs303)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 8:39am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/8 "2024-08-12T08:39:40Z")

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I think there are few options you can try out before reinstalling Linux.

First and easiest thing you can do is to try to find unnecessary files that could be deleted. Your partition scheme only includes `/`, `/home` and `swap`. This means that applications files and logs that are stored within `/usr`, `/opt` and `/var` are stored within your `rl-root` partition.  
Try using the `du` utility to locate unnecessary files that you could remove:

```bash
root@rocky:~# du --max-depth=1 -hc /{usr,opt,var}

```

Second of all, you could repartition your system. These are your partitions:

```auto
lvscan
  ACTIVE '/dev/rl/swap' [4.00 GiB] inherit
  ACTIVE '/dev/rl/home' [<3.57 TiB] inherit
  ACTIVE '/dev/rl/root' [70.00 GiB] inherit

```

And it seems you have a lot of free space on your `/home` partition:

```auto
                     Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/rl-home 2.9T 19% /mnt/boot-sav/mapper/rl-home
/dev/mapper/rl-root 20K 100% /mnt/boot-sav/mapper/rl-root

```

The quick fix, but one that probably will not help you in the long run, is to delete the `swap` partition, use the `lvm` utility to extend the `rl-root` partition and than `expand` the `xfs` filesystem. And than create a `swap file` on your `/home` partition instead.  
I cannot tell you the exact commands at the moment, but it would go something like that:

```bash
root@rocky:~# lvremove /dev/mapper/rl-swap
root@rocky:~# lvextend --size +4G /dev/mapper/rl-root
root@rocky:~# xfs_growfs /
root@rocky:~# dd if=/dev/zero of=/home/swapfile bs=1M count=4096
root@rocky:~# chmod 600 /home/swapfile
root@rocky:~# mkswap /home/swapfile
root@rocky:~# swapon /home/swapfile
root@rocky:~# echo '/home/swapfile none swap sw 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

```

and delete the old `swap` entry from `/etc/fstab`.

The other, more durable way to do it, is to backup your `/home` partition, remove it with `lvremove` and extend your `rl-root` to 200GB or something and recreate your `/home`.  
Unfortunately `xfs` filesystem cannot be shrinked, therefore you need to remove it.  
While you at it, you can rethink your partition scheme and maybe add a separate partion for `/var` or `/usr`.  
Especially for you only use 20% of your `/home`. Maybe you could allocate only 1TB to your `/home` and leave the rest unallocated. This gives you the flexibility to expand and partition that is getting clogged in the future.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stevejjd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@stevejjd](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/stevejjd)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 9:31am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/9 "2024-08-12T09:31:07Z")

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Thanks so much for helping me out, I will try and do what you suggested 🙂

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**Author:** ![jlehtone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9a140/32.png) [@jlehtone](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/jlehtone)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 9:33am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/10 "2024-08-12T09:33:53Z")

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> [@stevejjd](#):
>
> insane problem of important partitions running out of space

The installers default is to create four filesystems: `/`, `/boot`, `/boot/efi`, and `/home`  
The other defaults are to use LVM and XFS and allocate all of the disk for those filesystems.  
One cannot shrink existing XFS volume, so the default is rather static (despite having LVM).

The `/` has files installed from packages. The applications. These do not use huge space, nor change much after installation. The apparent rationale of the default is that users have data (documents) in their home.

However, the `/` has also `/tmp`, `/var/tmp`, and _optional stuff_ under `/var`. The _stuff_ being system logs and data for services like Apache, podman, and libvirt. Those things the installer cannot anticipate. The admin should customize the install to suite for the known needs.

* * *

One can _bind mount_. For example, have in `/etc/fstab`:

```auto
/home/www_root /var/www/html none bind 0 0

```

One naturally has to stop the `httpd.service` and _move_ content of `/var/www/html/` into `/home/www_root/` before making that mount. Also `restorecon -r /var/www/html` after mount to recheck the SELinux contexts.

Why such “trick”? When `httpd.service` is restarted, it will still see files in `/var/www/html/` – no need to change the config of the service.

All of this _if_ the /var/www/html is big.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stevejjd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@stevejjd](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/stevejjd)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 10:23am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/11 "2024-08-12T10:23:43Z")

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Thanks, I will try and get this fixed. Currently, I am my own admin and a newb when it comes to linux.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stevejjd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@stevejjd](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/stevejjd)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 10:42am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/12 "2024-08-12T10:42:36Z")

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So in order to fix this, do I start by booting into my ubuntu bootable usb and then try to mount the device with permissions and then follow the instructions or do I boot into Rocky Linux in a recovery mode?

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**Author:** ![hs303](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e47774/32.png) [@hs303](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/hs303)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 11:01am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/13 "2024-08-12T11:01:10Z")

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Both ways should work, if you are able to boot into recovery mode. If you use the live usb to boot into `ubuntu`, you need to mount the `/dev/mapper/rl-root` somewhere in order to execute `xfs_growfs`. You do not need to mount the filesystems for the other commands.

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**Author:** ![jlehtone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9a140/32.png) [@jlehtone](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/jlehtone)\
**Post date:** [August 12, 2024, 11:12am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/14 "2024-08-12T11:12:28Z")

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> [@hs303](#):
>
> If you use the live usb to boot into `ubuntu`, you need to mount the `/dev/mapper/rl-root` somewhere

and if you use the Rocky installation USB and boot it into troubleshooting mode, then it can do that mount for you.

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/rockylinux/original/1X/91b7219eec10e30013422e4df76c1d898711a5d5.svg) [@system](https://forums.rockylinux.org/u/system)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2024, 11:13am UTC](https://forums.rockylinux.org/t/rocky-linux-wont-boot/15223/15 "2024-10-11T11:13:25Z")

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