Got the new update, then Desktop unresponsive, rebooted, no boot

[ArKay99]

I just got the new update and applied it. Everything went fine. It rebooted and went to the desktop, I had the background and a few of my auto runs like psensor, but they took a long time to start. Then I clicked on Brave and got the spinning circle, but no launch. Then I tried a program from my desktop icon, nothing. So I tried to exit by hitting the off button on the system menu, and it wouldn't respond, so I hit reset on my computer and it went as far as the root file system check, then showed it failed.
/dev/sda1 contains a file system with errors, check forced.
Inodes that were part of a corrupted orphan linked list found.
/dev/sda1: UNEXPECTED INCONSISTENCY; RUN fsck MANUALLY.
(i.e., without -a or -p options)
fsck exited with status code 4
done.
Failure: File system check on the root filesystem failed
The root filesystem on dev/sda1 requires a manual fsck.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm pretty sick right now...

[Ponce-De-Leon]

There came a Kernel Update. Try it with booting in the older Kernel. On the GRUB Menu, choose ''Advanced Options'' and then choose the Start Option with the 6.14 Kernel.

[ArKay99]

I did that before my original post, and just did it again...no joy. Fails at the same spot with both kernels. I may have to run fsck. I'm not sure how to do it from where it fails. /dev/sda1 is where my Zorin mounts. I've run fsck from the terminal (I think, in order to mount my Zorin Data drive) where I have most of my data from the programs.

[ArKay99]

No, I didn't run fsck from the terminal, it was fstab, that drive has been working fine for months. I am still a Linux newbie. From the searches I've done, it appears in my case, at the (initramfs) prompt I should enter fsck /dev/sda1. Can someone with more knowledge than me confirm that? Will there be other prompts that fsck will generate?

I found a post that shows how to do it from the Rescue "Console", I guess that would be what I'd call it...a few menus to select what you want fsck to do. Would that be the best approach?

I just don't want to go ahead and paint myself deeper into this corner by doing something I shouldn't have done.

Lastly, this is a dual boot machine, Windows 10 is on the other boot. That boots ok.

[Aravisian]

@ArKay99

From the searches I've done, it appears in my case, at the (initramfs) prompt I should enter fsck /dev/sda1.

I think your later mentioned method is the better way.
From the Grub Menu, Select Advanced Options - then Zorin OS on... (recovery mode)

Select the fsck File System Check.

This is the correct step, so it is not painting yourself into a corner.

[ArKay99]

Thank you for the reply. So, from the prompt (initramfs)fsck /dev/sda1?

[Aravisian]

If that is your Zorin OS disk and partition, yes.
Disk sda, partition 1

[ArKay99]

Thank you! That seemed to have fixed it. I had to select Zorin Advanced and 6.14. Looking into how to edit GRUB so that 6.14 is default and 6.17 is not the default.

[Aravisian]

This is one method:

[HOW TO] set an older kernel to default boot

You may need to use an earlier kernel than the current kernel used by Zorin. This method allows you to set the kernel that you will boot into by default. To set the new kernel to default: Boot into the kernel you wish to be Saved. Open terminal and run: sudo nano /etc/default/grub Change GRUB_DEFAULT=0 to GRUB_DEFAULT=saved Hit enter to drop down a line. Add GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true ctrl+x to exit, then the y key to say yes to save, then the enter key to save as current configuration. Ru…

The other method is to remove the 6.17 kernel using Synaptic Package manager or terminal

sudo apt remove --purge linux-image-6.17.0-14-generic

[ArKay99]

Again, thank you for the help. For now I chose to edit grub. I tried to boot into 6.17 after I ran fsck and got the fsck failure again. I ran it and it corrected the error, but I'm hesitant to do anything with 6.17 for now. I'm going to purchase a new SSD and clone my system drive, then purge it. I'm not sure why upgrading the Kernel would corrupt the drive, but it seems to be happening in my case. I would think that fixing the errors would correct whatever corrupted the disk, but this proved that there must be some disk issue that booting into 6.17 causes.

[ArKay99]

It appears I'm not out of the woods yet. This morning I went to start LTSpice and it wouldn't start, but I noticed that the CPU was working at 15%. I opened System monitor and found that systemd-journald was taking most if not all that cpu resource. Then Evolution won't connect, so I can't get emails.

What should be my next step?

[Tokashi]

In the future, I recommend setting up TimeShift with at least two weekly backups if you don’t have too much space on your hard drive. It has already saved me once or twice after a bad update.

Hang in there!

[ArKay99]

Hi Tokashi, I did set up Timeshift, but IIRC it didn't do a correct job of imaging the system drive. I think what I'm going to have to do is bite the bullet and do a reinstall of Zorin to that drive and wipe out 6 months of configuring and tweaks. I do have the Zorin OS 18 install flash drive, ready to go...what a nightmare this is going to be.

[Tokashi]

take care of yourself

[zabadabadoo]

Do you have a separate /home partition? If you do, then you can choose not to format that partition on a "Something Else" install method.

[ArKay99]

Hi zabadabadoo, I don't have a separate partition. But I am able to boot into the Try Zorin setup and see all the drives, folders, and files. I have been looking into possibly just reinstalling the kernel, 6.14, which is what is on the Zorin install disk. I have also gotten some AI responses from searches that state it is possible. There has to be some mounting of drives and system folders, and then a chroot to the system. I'm not sure of the exact procedure and have been looking for any real documentation of how to do it.

[wsmather]

Agree with @Tokashi! But I suggest you backup daily (set backups to occur automatically) TimeShift saves are thrifty, and external storage is cheap.

[Aravisian]

@ArKay99

Hi zabadabadoo, I don't have a separate partition. But I am able to boot into the Try Zorin setup and see all the drives, folders, and files. I have been looking into possibly just reinstalling the kernel, 6.14, which is what is on the Zorin install disk. I have also gotten some AI responses from searches that state it is possible. There has to be some mounting of drives and system folders, and then a chroot to the system. I'm not sure of the exact procedure and have been looking for any real documentation of how to do it.

I do not understand the compolexity of this post.

You should already have the 6.14 kernel installed. You even set it as default.
If you reinstall... it would come with it installed.

And if for some reason, you need to install 6.14 kernel on your existing Zorin OS, you do not need chroot and all that jazz.

sudo apt install linux-image-6.14.0-36-generic linux-headers-6.14.0-36-generic linux-modules-6.14.0-36-generic linux-modules-extra-6.14.0-36-generic

[ArKay99]

This is what I'm seeing from the Try Zorin Desktop:

fdisk -l shows this:

This is what I've come across when doing a search on reinstalling from the flash drive:

Steps to Restore the 6.14 Kernel Using the Installation USB

1. Boot from the Zorin OS 18 USB drive :

• Insert the USB drive and restart your computer.
• Enter the boot menu (usually by pressing F12 , Esc , or F2 during startup) and select the USB drive.

2. Choose "Try Zorin OS" :

• Select "Try Zorin OS" to boot into a live session (no changes to your system).

3. Open a terminal :

• Once in the live session, open a terminal window.

4. Identify your system partition :

• Run lsblk or sudo fdisk -l to identify your Zorin OS root partition (e.g., /dev/sda5 or /dev/nvme0n1p5 ).

5. Mount your Zorin OS partition :

sudo mkdir /mnt/zorin
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/zorin

Replace sdXY with your actual root partition (e.g., sda5 ).
6. Reinstall the 6.14 kernel packages :

• Use chroot to access your installed system and reinstall the kernel:

sudo mount --bind /dev /mnt/zorin/dev
sudo mount --bind /proc /mnt/zorin/proc
sudo mount --bind /sys /mnt/zorin/sys
sudo chroot /mnt/zorin

• Now inside the chroot environment, reinstall the 6.14 kernel:

apt update
apt install --reinstall linux-image-6.14.0-37-generic linux-modules-extra-6.14.0-37-generic linux-headers-6.14.0-37-generic

• Exit the chroot:

exit

7. Update GRUB and unmount :

sudo umount /mnt/zorin/{dev,proc,sys}
sudo umount /mnt/zorin
sudo rm -rf /mnt/zorin

8. Reboot :

• Remove the USB drive and reboot.
• At the GRUB menu, select "Advanced options for Zorin" , then choose 6.14.0-37-generic to boot.

I'm hoping this will restore my system... confidence is low...

[ArKay99]

Hi Aravisian, For some reason everytime I boot into 6.14, it wants to run fsck and every time more and more errors are fixed, and nothing works on the desktop.

Thank you for clarifying what I should do to reinstall the 6.14 kernel. As I said, the procedure came from AI responses to my searches...I don't trust them all that much.

Unfortunately since I've been running fsck and it's been trying to fix more and more errors, Terminal doesn't work on the desktop. Unless I can run that command from the initramfs prompt.