Log files for kernel panic on Arch Linux

Question

I have recently updated my Arch Linux machine. Since then, I have been getting kernel panics here and there. (the screen freezes and the status lights on my keyboard are blinking)

It seems to happen when I watch a YouTube video for around 10 minutes. I want to find out what is causing these kernel panics so that I may solve them.

I can't seem to find any kind of log file with any kind of valuable information.

journalctl gives no useful information and dmesg only shows information about the current running kernel. Most of the log files in /var/log/ are empty. I think this is normal since systemd handles logging and doesn't store the logs there.

Where can I find more information about the kernel panics I'm getting? I don't need a full kernel dump, A stack trace or the name of the module/subsystem at fault should be enough.

Solution

dmesg -w > yourlogfile &

The above command will follow the dmesg log and print it to a file. Let it run until the kernel panics and check the log after booting with

tail yourlogfile

It may not give you the smoking gun, but it is a place to start.