SDDM crashes on startup after logout [RTX 2080]

Hi everyone,

I recently switched from Windows 10 to CachyOS and I’m building my own Hyprlandconfiguration. I’m hitting a wall when logging out and I hope someone can point me in the right direction.

Whenever I log out using hyprctl dispatch exit (via wlogout), instead of returning to the SDDM login screen, I get a black screen with a blinking underscore in the top-left corner. To get back in, I have to switch to TTY3 (Ctrl+Alt+F3), log in, and manually run Hyprland.

My Setup:

  • OS: CachyOS

  • GPU: NVIDIA RTX 2080 (using proprietary drivers)

  • CPU: Intel i7-8700

  • Display Manager: SDDM (using Candy theme)

Logs (journalctl -b -u sddm): I’ve noticed that sddm-helper seems to crash exactly when I try to exit the session:

dic 28 09:35:33 antonimodev sddm[913]: Session started true

dic 28 09:35:46 antonimodev sddm[913]: Authentication error: SDDM::Auth::ERROR_INTERNAL "Process crashed"

dic 28 09:35:46 antonimodev sddm[913]: Auth: sddm-helper (...) crashed (exit code 1)

dic 28 09:35:46 antonimodev sddm[913]: Authentication error: SDDM::Auth::ERROR_INTERNAL "Process crashed"

dic 28 09:35:46 antonimodev sddm[913]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 1

Has anyone experienced this specific sddm-helper crash upon exiting Hyprland on NVIDIA? Is there a specific SDDM configuration or a wrapper script I should be using for a clean exit?

Thanks in advance!