[SOLVED] Broke arch when trying to remove snapshot created by timeshift

[vagrant nova]

Hi, I was looking to backup my files and found out about timeshit. Tried creating a snapshot of my system in an USB but when I opened disk usage analyzer, I realized the snapshot was being created in my main SSD's run directory instead so I immediately cancelled the snapshot creation process and tried deleting the 'timeshift' directory that was automatically created inside the run directory. I used the command sudo rm -rf timeshift after cd-ing into /run.

This is where things went south, this command threw some errors before becoming unstoppable (literally!!). I tried Ctrl + C multiple times but the command kept popping up. Then I checked the Files app and noticed all the directories turned into blurry pixelated 'A' shaped squares, and when i closed the terminal running the command everything turned blurry and pixelated. Horror movie stuff 😭

I rebooted my device and was greeted with "ERROR: Root device mounted successfully, but /sbin/init does not exist. Bailing out, you are on your own. Good luck.
sh: can't access tty: job control turned off". My heart sank lower than the titanic. Tried looking up the error and found that adding init=/usr/lib/systemd or init=/bin/run-init might help boot up the system but neither of them did. But I did verify that both run-init and systemd existed in the paths specified.

Couldn't find much more that helped my situation but I believe the problem is here
Running ls -l /sbin/init returns /sbin/init -> busybox. It looks to me like maybe the /sbin/init is linking to the wrong location.

But yea, idk what else to do any help or insight on how to get my system back up would be appreciated, thanks in advance!!

p.s: I don't have an usb with arch on it rn so i cant chroot into live usb, so i'd prefer to fix it without one. if there's no other way around it, i will then create one

[lusty mantle]

init is the first fork a linux kernel makes when it starts

it is pid1

That being missing is a very, very bad sign

I would back up what you want to keep and re-install arch

I think that would be a lot simpler, and faster, than trying to unpick this

[vagrant nova]

but i when i look into usr/bin, i can still find init and run-init in there

or is that not it?

[lusty mantle]

It should be. If you can see it, linux should be able to aswell

[vagrant nova]

what could be the problem, then?

my best guess is that it has something to do with this "busybox". init, run-init and init inside sbin - all are linking to busybox like usr/bin/init -> busybox

[lusty mantle]

This is your equation. It's possible that cancelling the snapshot and rm -rf has profoundly corrupted your system

It's also possible it hasn't and you could fix this in two commands :D

Not being able to find init is sorta an "oh shit" linux moment by my estimation

[vagrant nova]

oh no 😭

but there are so many inits tho, like there's one in the root, one in bin and another in sbin

why aren't the arch gods finding it 😔

also i just noticed something strange when running ls in root

ls / has root directory and a new_root directory

and the root directory is empty while new_root has boot, dev, home, proc, run, sys, tmp and var

[lusty mantle]

how spooky

You've let gremlins into your machine

[vagrant nova]

and my user's directory inside the home dir is empty

insert crying under the rain gif

[dawn mason]

Arch doesn't use busybox so I don't know why you're seeing this

Do you have an arch ISO you can boot from?

[vagrant nova]

i don't atm, i'll create one tomorrow using my friend's pc

If the above fails, you can boot a live media and chroot to fix your system. Even better if you have a live media with the install scripts (installation iso) then you can just mount your root partition and `pacstrap /mnt systemd-sysvcompat.

found this on an arch forum, going to try this

lmk if you have some other idea after booting into live usb

[dawn mason]

Yeah I would try chrooting and reinstalling some/all packages if you are able to

[vagrant nova]

also, just to verify, am i writing it right in the kernel parameters

'Alternatively, in your boot loader you can edit your boot line so that it contains "init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" That will just boot the system enough for you to install the package. Reboot and shutdown may not work correctly with that but you should get a running system enough to install systemd-sysvcompat.'

[vagrant nova]

yeah, hopefully that fixes the problem

[agile pewter]

wrong

mkinitcpio uses busybox initramfs by default

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Mkinitcpio#Common_hooks

[dawn mason]

Oh I see, it's the initramfs' init

I forgot about that, my bad

[vagrant nova]

i went with a fresh install of arch and checked the file manager, looks like all my data got wiped out.
but during the installation, i did installed and set up every fresh again which led to there being two boot managers, i think.

the first one is the old one and booting from that leads to the error that the mount point /boot/efi doesn't exist. also running uname -a returns an older version of arch

i'm guessing removing the old one would be fine since all of my data is already lost anyway

if it is in fact fine and the right way to fix this, how do i do it?

[lusty mantle]

This is expected. One of those is the previous install, which will point nowhere now

.aw efibootmgr

[finite dirge]

Efibootmgr

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Efibootmgr

[lusty mantle]

This is the tool to add and remove these entries.

I think you just need to remove both, and then re-run grub-mkconfig. It should add its own grub entry again

[vagrant nova]

i'll try and do this, thanks

[terse vigil]

mushroom.botherer received a thank you cookie!

[vagrant nova]

i removed the old one and it's fine now, didn't want to bother deleting the working one and updating grub config again

thanks for everyone's help!!