After logging in w/ password: "unable to launch... X session"

[7emptes7]

Greetings,

My installed Linux Mint Cinnamon 20.1 alongside windows on my old laptop a few months ago. I mainly use this laptop for internet.

The other day I ran out of harddrive space after installing printer drivers (only had space for 20gb when I made the partition). This caused Linux to not boot up, but I solved that by changing the spare root user space on the harddrive from the advanced mode boot (ctrl alt F2 did not work for me, for some reason it would not take my username/password).

Once I got back in, I started trying to make more space by deleting or uninstalling things not needed. I only uninstalled some programs that I never use.

Now, after rebooting and logging in with my password I get the following error:

unable to launch "cinnamon-session-cinnamon" X session ---
"cinnamon-session-cinnamon" not found; falling back to default session.

From that message, my only option is to click "okay", which brings me to a black screen with my mouse cursor only. I can ctrl alt F2 from here or just press the power button to shut off the machine.

I researched this issue and mostly found posts regarding version 18.x, which said to delete some virtualbox packages. So I did that but did not solve my problem.

If I can't fix this I will have to check what the proper way is to do a fresh install of Mint. The worst I'll lose is my bookmarked websites and saved logins (lesson learned make sure to keep a backup copy).

[sleeper12]

See if Lord Boltar's solution here works for you, 2nd post down:
viewtopic.php?t=273579

[7emptes7]

thanks, had not come across that thread in my search otherwise I would not have opened a new thread.

Unfortunately it did not work for me. It seems several items failed after issuing those commands which might be why its not working.

From reading other replies in that thread, I think I may have deleted something that I shouldn't have which is the cause of my issue. I tried to only delete a few programs (such as firefox, calendar, etc,) that I do not use but know what they are.