System settings segfault, cannot open any settings app. The displayed time is also wrong

[Suby]

Hello fine people!

64 bit Linux Mint 20.1 Cinnamon user here. I've clearly broken something regarding my system and I'd appreciate any help in getting it working again.

As I said in the title, trying to open settings gives me a segmentation fault.

$ cinnamon-settings
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

The displayed time is also wrong. As far as I can tell, everything else is working correctly on my system.

I imagine this isn't enough to go off of to get this resolved, but I'm not sure what other information would be helpful here. I installed some python libraries last night so that I could play around with some machine learning stuff, and while I was successful in getting the libraries working, it looks like I've inadvertently broken some system level stuff on my machine. I pip installed a few libraries like imageio and pytorch-transformers which I can't imagine being a problem, but I also ran 'python -m pip install --upgrade pip' which I'm thinking may have been the catalyst for this. I am dumb for using the system level python stuff for this, yes.

Code: Select all

$ pip --version
pip 21.1.3 from /home/dan/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/pip (python 3.8)
$ python --version
Python 3.8.10

Thanks for reading and for any help.

[SMG]

Do you have any Timeshift snapshots of your system before you made those changes? Reverting to a snapshot would be the easiest way to fix your system. A lot of the Mint code is written in python.

I have not done any python work, so I do not know what may have happened. When I ran the commands you did, my system said neither pip nor python were installed. I then ran the version for python3 and it was 3.8.10.

If you do not have any snapshots, maybe the info in this thread Multiple versions of python installed? will give you some ideas until someone else jumps on the thread to give help.

Edited to add: I just found this thread How to install diferent versions of python on linux mint 20.1 cinnamon where spamegg provides more tips and info.