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

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.

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.

1 Like

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):

1 Like

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

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!

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.

1 Like

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.

1 Like

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

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.

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.