Help, something's broken after apt upgrade

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wmorrison
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Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2018 12:05 am
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Help, something's broken after apt upgrade

Post by wmorrison »

I doubt this is specifically MythTV related, but I'm not sure where to start, so any pointers would be appreciated.

I'm running Ubuntu 20.04.4 and have been for some time. Actually, it should be Xubuntu, with xfce, which is what I installed about 3 years ago when I built this machine, but everything I see just says Ubuntu.

Just tonight, 8/7/2022, I ran sudo apt update/sudo apt upgrade. The last time I did was 7/9/2022, which I know because I always do a Timeshift backup before upgrades.

The upgrade took a lot longer than I was expecting. More than usual.

After the update, something is not right. MythTV seems fine so far, but I also use other apps. None of them have a title bar now, or a frame, can't drag the edge to resize window.

At least one app has a "corrupted screen" (garbage) sometimes (then it clears) and some dialogs come up blank. (Beyond Compare, which worked fine a few days ago before the update.)

When I exit MythTV/Mythwelcome completely, the desktop is black when it should have a fixed color and a wallpaper image. I also see the X cursor.

So something broken in Xorg? Xfce? It's been so long since I've had to debug a problem like this, I've forgotten where to start looking.

I was going to use Beyond Compare (diff tool) to compare live directories to the previous backup, but Beyond Compare isn't working, blank dialogs, can't set up rules/filters.

Any ideas where to start looking? Good Ubuntu forums? Anybody else have problems after a recent update?
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paulh
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Re: Help, something's broken after apt upgrade

Post by paulh »

You should see a log of what apt installed in /var/log/apt/history.log which might give you a clue what got updated :idea:
wmorrison
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Re: Help, something's broken after apt upgrade

Post by wmorrison »

I did look at history.log yesterday, there was a ton, including xserver-xorg-core and xserver-xorg-legacy, will look more later but I've got bigger problems today.

I had a Timeshift backup, from when the system was working fine, just before I did apt update. So I planned to:

- Do a mythconverg backup
- Make a new backup of the "bad" system just in case (for comparing files later, at least)
- Restore the previous working Timeshift backup
- Restore mythconverg to get back the recording data since yesterday

(BTW my data drive for recordings is not backed up by timeshift, nor of course the backup drive, but everything else is.)

Unfortunately, after the timeshift restore, I still have all the same symptoms (black desktop, X cursor, windows with no title bar or frame.)

How can this survive a restore to a good backup?

So I tried restoring mythconverg, but I've never done that before and I got a message it can't do it because the database isn't empty.

Had a recording coming up within an hour and a half, so thought, I'll just restore the final Timeshift backup, since it includes the latest mythconverg data.

Well, that seemed to hang so I cancelled it and rebooted... What?!?!? Mythfrontend doesn't see recordings (all blue.) Turns out SOMETHING overwrote /etc/fstab removing all mounts but the basic system. Maybe Timeshift when it hung? Anyway, luckily I had a slightly-old backup of fstab right in /etc, so copied it over and mount -a, then I had /backup, so copied latest fstab from backup and rebooted...

It's recording now and will be until 1am (as most nights) so I don't get much of a maintenance window unless I want to suspend some rules. And I have a days worth of orphaned recordings I'll have to figure out.

Since Beyond Compare isn't working, I did diff -rq on /etc and a good backup etc to see if something changed my settings but I don't see anything related to xorg, xfce, etc.

I think some symbolic links are "dead" (target doesn't exist) so looking into that next.

This is extremely frustrating. I always do a backup before apt update because a few years ago when I didn't, I got bitten. I've restored backups before and it worked.

Sorry for the rant. I don't expect a point-by-point review. But if something like this has happened to you and you know something that helped...
wmorrison
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Re: Help, something's broken after apt upgrade

Post by wmorrison »

The problem is, my window manager is not starting automatically. No idea why an update changed that, or why a restore didn't fix it. Everything works if I start it manually. I'll figure out the rest tomorrow.
wmorrison
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Joined: Sat Dec 01, 2018 12:05 am
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Re: Help, something's broken after apt upgrade

Post by wmorrison »

Most advice on how to set window manager says pick it when you log in, but I have a passwordless login (because MythTV.)

So I found choosewm. Lets you pick a window manager (I only have xfwm4) and optionally set it to not ask every time, which I did. Run it when no window manager is running.

I rebooted and everything is back to normal.
Dai_Trying
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Re: Help, something's broken after apt upgrade

Post by Dai_Trying »

If you have passwordless login you should be able to just log-out of that session and then choose the wm to log back in to, at least I can do that with Debian and I'm presuming it does the same for Ubuntu...
wmorrison
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Re: Help, something's broken after apt upgrade

Post by wmorrison »

Dai_Trying wrote:
Thu Aug 11, 2022 7:11 am
If you have passwordless login you should be able to just log-out of that session and then choose the wm to log back in to, at least I can do that with Debian and I'm presuming it does the same for Ubuntu...
(Smacks forehead)

This could have been a lot shorter and less scary if I'd remembered that.
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