SOLVED - Cinnamon crash on boot after hard shutdown

[benchrest]

My wife's machine froze after plugging in phone to download pictures. After powering off holding down power button, reboot cinnamon crashes. Using a livecd thunbdrive cinnamon works fine. So I think the hardware is ok. Booting from SSD all else seems to work except cinnamon.
I tried reinstalling cinnamon with
sudo apt-get install --reinstall cinnamon
Also tried renaming .cinnamon to cinnamonx and a new .cinnamon does not get created.
Tried renaming .config/cinnamon-session to .config/cinnamon-sessionx and a new one is created.
What else do I need to do?
My machine and my wife's are identical except I have dual monitors so I can compare settings if necessary.
LinuxMint 18.3 cinnamon
cinnamon 3.6.7
linux kernal 4.13.0-43 generic (tried older kernal)
Graphics card Nvidia GT218 (GeForce 210) ASUS GeForce EN210
Samsung 256gb SSD

[benchrest]

I have the old harddrive from pre SSD days on this machine with a 17.x version of LM Cinnamon, it boots fine with cinnamon. Must either be cinnamon data corrupted on SSD or SSD is bad.
I fired up the Synaptic Package Manager and deleted all components of Cinnamon with mark for complete removal including configuration files. Maybe I missed something. But I reinstalled with sudo apt-get install --reinstall cinnamon
No change, cinnamon still fails.
I wish I knew a command(s) that would insure cinnamon was completely removed and then reinstall.
My only option I know how todo is a complete reinstall which is time consuming. Not to install LM, but to set up firewall, install apps, restore backup files etc.

[AZgl1800]

Go back to basics:

Use a FOB or a CD/DVD Live Session to totally Erase the disk and install from there.

That will guarantee that you have a brand new install that will run smooth.

hope you have been making backups?

Aptik can copy the entire system keeping all of her Preferences.

LuckyBackup or BackInTime can keep her personal files safe if stored on an extHDD extUSB HDD

[benchrest]

I have good backups (I hope). Tried
sudo apt-get remove cinnamon
sudo apt-get purge cinnamon
sudo apt-get install cinnamon
as with my previous attempts no luck
I have installed 18.3 fresh and cinnamon seems ok
installed 115 updates and reboot ok
am currently loading backup files.
I suspect this solution will work. Will mark resolved in a couple of hours.

[AZgl1800]

none of those sudo...... attempts are going to give you a nice clean running OS.

erase and full install is the only way to guarantee it will be right, and the time involved is the same or less.

[benchrest]

Reinstall of Cinnamon 18.3 worked and is still working. So apparently no permanent failure of SSD.