TimeShift Fails to Correctly Restore Snapshot of Perfectly Working System

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frank84
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TimeShift Fails to Correctly Restore Snapshot of Perfectly Working System

Post by frank84 »

SUMMARY
I did a fresh install of Linux Mint 18, 64-bit Mate, and made Timeshift Snapshots before and after each "baby-step" of updating it. Everything seemed to be working fine after doing the driver update (Open Source AMD firmware microcode) and using the Update Manager to make all Level 1 and 2 updates. But after completing some of the level 3 updates, I noticed that the computer could no longer restart normally. It froze during bootup every time I attempted to restart. I then went back to a snapshot where restart was working perfectly but that did not solve the restart problem.

MORE DETAILS
The problem with restart clearly hadn't shown up until way after that snapshot was made. Multiple successful restarts were performed for verification before that snapshot was made.

I did the updates in small increments, for example, only installing half of the level 3 updates after only installing level 1 and 2 updates. I did a restart, a shutdown and a second restart between each small step of updating it and I kept meticulous notes of the computer status and the number of restarts and shutdowns perfromed for verifications before and after each update.

TESTING AND VERIFYING
I was updating carefully, verifying each step with multiple restarts and taking meticulous notes because essentially the same thing happened to me a several days earlier. In that case, I noticed that restart stopped working even though I made no changes to the system. Like this time, going back to a perfectly working snapshot did not solve the problem. I posted my problem in the Installation and Boot forum ( viewtopic.php?f=46&t=273412&p=1496879#p1496879 ) but only received one response; unfortunately it did not help.

This last time I went back even further in Timeshift to very soon after the original installation where I finally found a snapshot that worked perfectly. Then I started over with the update process -- which is documented above.

During this latest try, either the system lost the ability to restart normally for some unknown reason or it lost it due to the installation of a level 3 update. But in either case, Timeshift failed to fix the problem when I went back to a snapshot that was working perfectly.

I HAVE TWO PROBLEMS TO SOLVE: TIMESHIFT AND RESTART
Even if I could solve the mystery of why Timeshift seems to not work correctly, I also need to figure out how I can intall the appropriate updates to LM 18 and still be able to restart without freezing up. I am new to Linux but I tried and failed at installing several LM distros. I was finally able to get LM 17.3 working, but it loses support in April; that is why I am trying LM18. I read that these two distros both use Kernel 4.4 so I should be able to use LM 18.

Could you please help me figure out how to solve the restart problem even if we can't solve the Timeshift problem?

I would appreciate any help you can provide. Thank You.

COMPUTER SPECIFICATIONS:

Toshiba Satellite P205D-S7454 Laptop
(came with Windows Vista)

* AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-58
+ 1.9 GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, HyperTransport™ Technology @ up to 800MHz
+ AMD M690V chipset

* 2048MB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM

* ATI Radeon® Xpress X1200M 128MB-319MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory

* 128 GB SSD (added by me to replace old hard drive)
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
michael louwe

Re: TimeShift Fails to Correctly Restore Snapshot of Perfectly Working System

Post by michael louwe »

frank84 wrote:.
.
To solve screen-freezing problems for AMD/Nvidia graphics cards ,,, viewtopic.php?f=46&t=122257
https://linuxmint.com/rel_sonya_cinnamon.php
frank84
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Re: TimeShift Fails to Correctly Restore Snapshot of Perfectly Working System

Post by frank84 »

Thanks for your reply Michael. I tried adding nomodeset xforcevesa to the GRUB menu as suggested in the links, however, unfortunately, it did not help. I also got a fleeting error message after exiting GRUB -- too fleeting to see and remember it.

As far as I can tell those procedures are for a one-time boot up from power off, not for a restart. I checked the GRUB menu after shutting down the power and booting up and noticed that my changes were already deleted, as I suspected. For modifications to potentially help during restarts both now and in the future, I believe any helpful modifications would have to be saved in such a way that they will survive during future restarts.

I also re-checked with driver update again and I do already have the AMD opensource driver microcode installed. My graphics specs are: ATI Radeon® Xpress X1200M 128MB-319MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory . I didn't see any references to ATI in the instructions.

Please let me know if it appears that I missed anything. Thanks for you input. Any additional suggestions would be very welcome.
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slipstick
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Re: TimeShift Fails to Correctly Restore Snapshot of Perfectly Working System

Post by slipstick »

frank84 wrote: Sat Jul 21, 2018 7:50 am As far as I can tell those procedures are for a one-time boot up from power off, not for a restart. I checked the GRUB menu after shutting down the power and booting up and noticed that my changes were already deleted, as I suspected. For modifications to potentially help during restarts both now and in the future, I believe any helpful modifications would have to be saved in such a way that they will survive during future restarts.
To make a kernel parameter such as "nomodeset" or "xforcevesa" permanent, edit (as Root) the file /etc/default/grub and change the line

Code: Select all

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
to

Code: Select all

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset xforcevesa"
or you can delete the "quiet splash" if you want to see the bootup messages.

Note - on my system with an Nvidia graphics card, I have to use nomodeset, but don't need the xforcevesa.

After saving that file, then run

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they ain't.
frank84
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Re: TimeShift Fails to Correctly Restore Snapshot of Perfectly Working System

Post by frank84 »

Thank you for your assistance slipstick ,

I gave that a try but unfortunately, it didn't solve the problem.

At this point in time, the discussion to help with my problem has picked up on my other post focusing on the "restart" issue at the Installation and Boot forum ( viewtopic.php?f=46&t=273412 ) in case you are interested.

Thank you.
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