After daily software update the display is wrong, docs are off screen, VM won't start

[JimH]

Zorin OS 17.1 Pro (I thought I was on 17.2, but it says 17.1), AMD® Ryzen 5 2600, 16 gigs RAM, Nvidia GeForce GT 710

I install the updates that I am notified of almost every day with no problems. However, after installing them today, several things have gone wrong.

1. I needed to restart the system after the updates. After doing so, the display was huge. My monitor is a 32" Samsung 1920x1080. Most of the display was off the edges of the screen. I restarted the machine a second time. It was the same. I managed to open the display settings. Everything was still set correctly. I tried changing the display and then changing it back. This brought the display back to normal, except for number 2 below.

2. Documents are opening off screen. I can get them back by choosing 'move' from the context menu that I get when right-clicking on the icon at on the task bar. However, every time that I open a new document with LibreOffice or Text Editor, they are completely off screen ... very inconvenient. This may have something to do with the workspaces function ... which I have never used.

3. The VirtualBox manager app will start. However, when I try to launch one of the vm's, VirtualBox reports a 'critical error' and the machine does not start. I use these vm's every day..

This all happened within a few minutes of installing the updates. I'm afraid of what more I may discover. I cannot find any posts describing the same issue so maybe something just went wrong while updating.

[crystawth]

Did the kernel get updated when you ran the software update? I just ran into audio/video playback issues with 6.8.0-40 and had to revert to 6.5.0-45 to get it working properly again.

[Aravisian]

What is your terminal output of uname -r? If you are on the 6.8.0-40 kernel, the first thing I would try is booting to grub menu, selecting Advanced Options, then the boot entry for the 6.5 or other earlier kernel.

In addition, another user wrote this guide for users determined to use the 6.8 (if they are not having any other issues):

VirtualBox 6.x broken after Kernel upgrade ZORIN 17 Pro

Greetings all ! just a little help here if you need it, i had an old version of Virtual box running and last kernel upgrade broke it Here are the steps to get rid of the old 6.x and upgrade to the new 7x version Hope this helps some folks out ! Cheers ! What you’ll need to install VirtualBox 7.0 To install VirtualBox 7.0, you’ll need a running instance of a Ubuntu-based Linux distribution and a user with sudo privileges. That’s it. How to install VirtualBox 7.0 The first thing you must …

[Ponce-De-Leon]

If You should have updated Your Kernel to 6.8, you should take a Look at this because of Your Nvidia Graphics:

After update, display is really slow and screen is tearing

Thanks for the flag @zabadabadoo! We've investigated this issue and have found that specifically the upstream proprietary NVIDIA 545 driver package currently doesn't have a kernel module that's compatible with Linux 6.8 yet. We've found that most other versions of the NVIDIA driver package should nevertheless be compatible with the latest kernel update: 550 545 535 530 (auto-upgrades to version 535) 525 (auto-u…

[JimH]

Thanks to everyone who responded. uname -r = 6.8.0-40-generic
It's interesting to note that Libreoffice Writer will not start. At least, there is no graphic activity to indicate that it tried. I haven't tried anything else yet.

I intend to follow Aravisian's recommendation and boot into kernel 6.5.

... a few minutes later ...

I booted using 6.5.0-45-generic and everything seems to be working normally now.

BUT !!! I always install all updates as soon as I am notified of their availability. Now, I have to wonder if they will all go into the 6.8 version ... I won't be protected.

What do you advise?

Thanks very much for all og the help. I got back up and running very quickly!

[zabadabadoo]

@JimH

I booted using 6.5.0-45-generic and everything seems to be working normally now.

BUT !!! I always install all updates as soon as I am notified of their availability. Now, I have to wonder if they will all go into the 6.8 version ... I won't be protected.

Seems to be many things impacted by update to 6.8 kernel being reported on the forum the past few days, not just Nvidia graphics. I hope @AZorin @zorink are continuing to follow the spike in posts we are experiencing. The current mantra seems to be go to grub menu "Advanced Options for Zorin" and roll back to a 6.5 kernel.

[Aravisian]

@JimH

BUT !!! I always install all updates as soon as I am notified of their availability. Now, I have to wonder if they will all go into the 6.8 version ... I won't be protected.

What do you advise?

You can apt mark-hold the kernel, or you can set default boot to the 6.5 kernel, which will boot you into the working kernel even if the 6.8 is installed. I recommend the second option since the mark-hold can lock you in.

[JimH]

Thanks, Aravisian. I have set the timeout to -1 so that I can always select the kernel that I want. I'm hoping that this means the daily updates will be for the running system ... i.e. 6.5.0-45-generic

[JimH]

I don't know if I should close this thread because my immediate issue has a good workaround or wait until the actual issue with the newer kernel is resolved.