Mint missing again

[Ed P]

Once you have it all cleared up You need to find out WHY it keeps crapping out as Linux has a very stable file system

a) Do you get the occasional messages that make no sense about you running out of disk space, and you ignore them as it appears you have plenty. This is the bug that Lee highlighted. root can run out of space despite their being plenty elsewhere. This can screw up your drives. Use the script I posed earlier to fix.

b) If a) raises no Red Flags then one of your F1 watching programs may have a memory bug that allows it to write where it shouldn’t. As Dan will say ‘This cannot happen’ but you need to check your Kodi forums to see if others have issues.

[Les.]

I just thought time for an update. Two weeks tomorrow since it last played up, and I am beginning to relax. I searched for Kodi inspired problems, could find nothing, but only used the Pi for Kodi since. There MAY be a connection.

For now I will just keep my fingers crossed.

Les.

[Les.]

Oh dear! I spoke too soon. At switch on this morning, not boot found, please insert boot disc etc. I will try Ctrl-Alt-Del hust once.

Success  —-   for now.

Les.

[Ed P]

Run fsck, by issuing the following command in a terminal.

shutdown -rF now

This may or may not need a sudo.

This is a little like running chkdsk in Windows but is more powerful and it runs without much intervention unless it uncovers a huge nasty.

[Ed P]

I think that one of your programs is behaving badly. However,I have no idea which! If things have improved since you last used Kodi I’d grasp at straws and suggest a ‘complete removal” of kodi via synaptic that would get rid of any chron objects it has inserted.

When you have a spare half hour you could use your file viewer to go to var/log and browse the following for clues:

mintsystem.log gives you the programs that run at Mint GUI start-up

syslog.log gives you a history of boots. Look at the last ‘failure’ and see if anything pops out. A lot of this will be network chitchat with a few errors as it negotiates DHCP – these you can ignore. Then there will be a list of chron jobs that are run at start-up – I suspect one of these is tied to Kodi or something and is going belly up. A warning – the syslog is HUGE and will take a lot of browsing.

I guess you could use cat grep “something to look for” /var/log/syslog.log, but I have no idea what to substitute for the “something to look for”.

 

 

[Les.]

Ed, thanks for messages, I saw them as emails, with results following. NOTE, I just realised that “NOW” was part of your terminal line. I did not add that, probably resulting in the 1 min delay. anyway:-

Ed, thanks for messages. I did as advised (shutdown -rF) which it schedules one minute ahead. On time, screen blanks, then the Mint icon appeared, with the first three of five progressing dots on screen, then nothing. I went out to PO, and still sitting there unchanged.

CtrlAlt-Del, no response.

Forced shutdown. Switch on, then hold Shift.

Menu, select advanced options. 10 choices.

Select 2nd line, recovery. 8 options.

Select Grub.

First line lib/recovery-mode line 80: etc/default/res

No such file or directory.

There follow about 8 lines ending generic

1 line ending .elf

finally line ending .bin

Done, enter.

Select FSCK Can not enter, not in read only mode.

Select DPKG

reading cache can not upgrade. Upgrade from tessa to bionic not supported.

Select Resume

reboots without some drivers.

Restart – which it DOES. It must be 2 years since a restart filed to hang at the Mint icon.

Does any of the above mean anything? Not to me.

Les.

[Ed P]

Do as you did before – reboot while holding SHIFT

a) Select Advanced Options

b) run fsck. This one MUST be run before the others. Ignore warnings!

c) run clean (cannot make space on a carp file system hence fsck first)

d) run dpkg (cannot sort out packages on a carp file system hence fsck first)

e) update grub (not really necessary as you will not even have reached Advanced Options. It does however help if you have not got enough boot space and you tried to update the kernel – funny things then happen.

f) hit resume and cross your fingers.

You may want to run that clean-up script I posted earlier,  as lack of root/boot space can be a cause of problems.

 

 

[Les.]

Here we go again! Since Ed’s last message, I have tried at least half a dozen times to start whilst pressing SHIFT. Pressing and holding until normal mint start, pressing tap tap tap until normal mint start. It would not go to a command line. I tried with the shutdown command as before, but (as has been the norm), it never “restarts”  — just that one time when Ed suggested it.

This morning:

boot from CD

read error. —  ctr-alt-del  —  shutdown button, shutdown button to start

boot from CD

error reading grub  —  ctr-alt-del  —  shutdown button, shutdown button to start

boot from CD  read error. —  ctr-alt-del  —  shutdown button, shutdown button to start

Insert install DVD, boot to live image.

SSD is visible, and can be mounted and unmounted.

Shutdown and remove DVD.

Repeats the   Boot from CD stuff again.

Again insert DVD and boot to live image.

Try DDan’s suggestion

sudo fdisk -l

Disk /dev/loop0:1.8GB    (the boot DVD I assume)

Disk / dev/sda: 223GB blah blahblah

units       sectors       of              /*   512 = 512bytes

sector size (logical/physical)                ditto

IO size                                                      ditto

Disk label type     DOS

Disk ID 0xf243a422

Device     Boot     Start         ends             sectors              size     ID    Type

SDA1         *        2048     468860927    468858880  223GB     83   linux

 

Sudo   Blkid

blah blah blah  sectors OK, no ewrrors

 

Chroot   Hmm, but what should follow. Old man stumped again.

Shutdown.   NORMAL START!!!!!

Here I am, just baffled.

Les.

 

 

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

Are you REALLY sure you want to keep going with Linx Les ?

Linux is open sourse and great for hobbyists and tinker’s but because of that there is no “standard” config out there.

Just saying because you can get W10 really cheap ?

[D-Dan]

chroot should be your first port of call here. There’s every chance that something is resting unconfigured.

Arch wiki, but will work: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Chroot#Using_chroot (you’ll need to boot from your CD/DVD/USB)

Once you are in, try:

[code]sudo dpkg –configure -a[/code]

Let it run through. Watch for errors or failures, and if necessary, remove misbehaving updates. You may need to try:
[code]sudo apt-get install -f[/code]

Just to be able to uninstall stuff (though that could, equally, help to fix whatever is breaking).

EDIT: And damn – [code] tags not supported – but you get the idea.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Les.]

Ddan, hmm. No, over my head I am afraid.

The only time I got into “Single user mode”, I tried the wrong command first (see many posts back).

I just tried another three times, twice following the Shutdown command from terminal. Again, no luck. I have tried both the RH “SHIFT” and the LH “SHIFT” control. I have tried both holding down, and tapping. I tried from switch on, and from a moment or so after the “Boot from CD” line.  — (First boot set for CD)

With that single exception recently, Mint 18 and 19 have NEVER made a proper “Restart”, not even after clicking the “Install” icon from an INSTALL routine.

If I need a reboot, I just use “Shutdown” and press start button when completed.

Les.

[Wheels-Of-Fire]

See ?

Microsoft are not the big bad guy’s they once were.

[Ed P]

Les, I think you have to give up and do a complete reinstall including formatting your boot drive.

First however copy the contents of your Home folder onto a Flash drive. I doubt that your Home is bigger than 128GB and such drives are available for £15 or so, with 64GB drives under £10. Do NOT copy the hidden files with the exception of Mozilla and Thunderbird as I suspect that Kodi or something has messed up your boot configs.

[Les.]

Early this morning as I lay in bed, I decided the best thing to do would be to copy everything, full reinstall, without adding any of the non-vanilla programs (esp Kodi) until I need them. (Gimage reader, xsane, skype, simple screen recorder and such like. ( Ed, your advice I now see).

Anyway, it was difficult this morning, but did lead directly to the single user mode.

I will show all the steps, just in case it suggests anything, bearing in mind I still have a (no longer strong) possibility that there is still the SSD having had one fail.

Boot from CD

Error read and write to outside of HD0. (no time to read full info before it moved on itself)

Need to load kernel

Menu with 12 lines, —– generic

——- Recovery etc

I selected 1st recovery, fail, likewise 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

5th choice did load a kernel.

New DOS style message

First line included End kernel panic not syncing:VFS:unable to mount root fs on unknown block (0,0)

computer unresponsive, so I did a forced shutdown and then started it again.

Same routine, but this time I choose the 6th recovery kernel. It loads.

Note in following, some White Text on black back ground, some normal black text on white background These are underlined .

Recovery menu

<OK> started DBUS system message BUS Clean

Try to make free space

Starting manage install and generate color ptofiles

– Broken Packages

FSCK

Check AI

<OK> Started Manage Install and generate color profiles

Update Grub Bootloader

Network

Starting Avhi mDMS/DMS-SD STACK

Boot

Drop to root shell Prompt

<OK> STARTED Avhi mDMS/DMD-SD Stack.ry

System Summary

<OK> Started Daily apt upgrade and clean activities

<OK>

What next, ESC or Enter? Try ESC. Gives familiar menu

Resume

Clean

DPKG

FSCK

Grub

Network

Root

System summary

Choose GRUB

/lib recovery-mode /recovery-menu line80: / etc/

default/res: no such file or directory

(+ About another 18 lines)

Done Finished, Please press enter. Returns to Menu

FSCK Can not, needs to be read only Returns to Menu

DPGK reading cache

can not upgrade

An upgrade from Tessa to to Bionic not possible.

Done Finished, Please press enter. Returns to Menu

Resume, not all drivers will be loaded

Loads Linux OK.

Shutdown. Leave until later today

Start. Loads OK

 

That is where I am now. I will do a bit of house keeping, copy all my stuff away and then do the full reinstall.

Les.

[Les.]

Important stuff from HOME folder copied to my backup.

Mint 19.1 installed to SSD deleting all existing data.

All backups transferred to new Home folder.

Thunderbird and firefox loaded with old info.

Vanilla install only, will wait to install wanted programmes, then singly as required.

It works, fingers crossed, we shall see what happens.

Les.

[Les.]

Since the reinstall, I have added “Calibre”, but not opened it.

One day, the bottom bar had a reddish colour, and icons not responding. I eventually realised that the red was to do with moving the icon bar (I think) but by then I had managed to lose the icons, so had to right click the progeammes from the menu box. They appeared small, and on bottom RHS. Now if you minimise something, it disappears, not to be found in its icon location. Using alt-tab will find it if later use items are closed. Confusing.

BUT, this afternoon I shut down. When switched on, the boot drive was missing.

Boot from CD

Error read ….   etc.

Force shut down. this time it starts OK.

This must end somewhere, but WHERE?

Buy another 250GB SSD, put iin the other identical computer and reinstall yet again?????

Nothing has gone amiss since the reinstall to screw GRUB up.

It surely MUST be hardware.

Les.

[Ed P]

I’m assuming that you have a near vanilla Mint with no ‘unusual’ software.

Given the MTBF for modern SSDs I think it unlikely that you need yet another SSD. A failing PSU may have caused odd visual glitches, or possibly you have some bad connectors between the mobo and SSD or PSU and SSD. If you have spare connectors try a swap around.

[Les.]

Ed, I am at a loss to come to any conclusion. Consider the history.

Last year a failing monitor lead me astray, so I bought an identical Shuttle and ran that instead, only then diagnosing the monitor fault. Bought a new one.

I had got a 60GB SSD from Dave for the op system. Everything ran OK, but I was annoyed by the faffing around every time I wanted to put something in my files on the spinner, so I bought the 240GB SSD and discarded the spinner. Later, the problems, identical to current began, and I reinstated the two drives (SSD plus HDD) and sent the 240GB back to supplier. It was (presumably) deemed faulty after a couple of weeks, and an identical replacement received.

After a few months, the current round of problems began once more.

Last week’s install absolutely vanilla, other than the calibre, which has not yet been opened.

No Skype, Kodi, Simplescreen recorder, Gimage reader, Shotwell,Xsane,Cheerse, Brassero, or the MSfonts.

I could swop this SSD into the other shuttle and see what happens (but there could be a problem with slightly different graphics card (Gforce GT720 here, GT620 there if I remember correctly) otherwise identical.

Or just buy another SSD for this shuttle. It MUST be a hardware fault of some sort, and other than a spare big SSD, I have a spare “everything”.

By the way, first switch on today was a fail. Switch off, switch on, this time it started OK.

Les.

[Ed P]

I suspect overheating. This can cause colour glitches, and cause file corruption. Check all your fans are working (including CPU/GPU), check for dead rodents and spiders and give it a good air blast.

[Les.]

Ed, NOT overheating. Until a couple of months ago, I used to switch PC on and off up to 4 times a day, but after that first failure to boot, when I identified that the SSD “was not present”, I have been leaving it on all day. Only if I have done a re-start has it crashed when hot, every other time has necessarily been first thing in the morning, as today.

In the next few days, time permitting, I will get the other shuttle and fit this SSD. Because of the different graphics card, it may refuse to boot, in which case I will do another full reinstall, since that part is generally simple and quick.

Otherwise, I am quite stuck for ideas. If it screws up then, the only common factor will be the SSD.

Les.

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