Linux Mint doesn't boot after upgrade to version 21

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guyr
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Linux Mint doesn't boot after upgrade to version 21

Post by guyr »

I am encountering the same issue. I'm running Mint in a VirtualBox VM. Was running Linux Mint 20.3 "Una" MATE Edition, and did the upgrade last night. Before attempting the upgrade, I made sure to apply all available updates to 20.3 first. At the end up of the upgrade, MintUpgrade reported that it had completed successfully. However, during the upgrade process, I noticed that it had held one package back (can't remember which). Also, I got several prompts about packages that couldn't be upgraded, which asked me what I wanted to do. In each case, I told it to proceed with the new package version.

When I try to boot the default grub selection, I see a group of repeating messages:

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Failed to start Light Display Manager. See systemctl status lightdm.service for details
Starting Detect the available CPUs and deal with any system changes
Finished Detect the available CPUs and deal with any system changes
See systemctl status gpu-manager.service for details
After rebooting to recovery mode, looking in boot.log, the first error I see is "Failed to start Load AppArmor profiles. See systemctl status apparmor.service for details". Booting continues.

Next failure I see is for NTP daemon. "See systemctl status ntp.service for details".

And from here it loops on the "Failed to start Light Display Manager." messages that I described above.

Because this is a VM, I can restore the VM to a previous state and try again. I discovered that if I boot to recovery mode, and then tell it to continue booting, it will boot to a command prompt, and prompt me for a login. I can successfully login, and then run startx. My desktop is there, networking is working, and I can run all the software (system installed and installed by me.) Automated display resizing by VirtualBox is not working. I tried reinstalling Guest Additions, that didn't help.

After getting a desktop, I took a look at /var/log/lightdm/lightdm.log, and I see the following:

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[+0.02s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Creating greeter session
[+0.02s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Failed to find session configuration lightdm-webkit-greeter
[+0.02s] DEBUG: Seat seat0: Failed to create greeter session
[+0.02s] DEBUG: Failed to start seat: seat0
Perhaps this is why normal booting doesn't work? Has the greeter configuration changed in 21? Can I fix this?

Thanks.
Last edited by LockBot on Sat Apr 22, 2023 10:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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guyr
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Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:10 pm

Re: Linux Mint doesn't boot after upgrade to version 21

Post by guyr »

From what I'm able to tell, the webkit greeter is no longer available in 21. I looked around and could not figure out how to install it. I've had the Mint VM running for multiple years, so I don't really remember how I came to be using the Webkit greeter. I've normally chosen the Arctica greeter when I've had to make a choice, so I'm guessing the webkit was the default greeter at some point. I switched to the GTK greeter, and my system is now booting normally. Yes, I realize I just said I would normally chose the Arctica greeter, but when I selected that, it wanted to install a large number of packages. This Mint VM is not my primary system, so I don't want to install all those packages.

I'll open an issue. This should really be identified in the upgrade process, since the system cannot boot normally after completion of the upgrade.

Issue opened here: https://github.com/linuxmint/mintupgrade/issues/59
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