Upgrade from 19.3 to 20 worked, but Cinnamon desktop can not be started

[KenInLansingMI]

I followed the instructions "How to upgrade to Linux Mint 20" from 19.3. This is the first time I have ever tried this. Usually, I have done fresh installs on version changes, e.g. from 18.3 to 19. During the mintupgrade check section, there were instructions to use apt to delete items. I deleted all the indicated items, reran the check and deleted the items there, repeated until there were no items indicated. Then ran the upgrade step. The system upgraded to 20, but the system is left in tty1, not in Cinnamon after boot. I tried the startx command, but received the following:

/etc/X11/xinit/xserverrc: 3: exec: /user/bin/x: not found
xinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused
xinit: server error

I remember that some of he items indicated to be deleted during the check step had xorg.server.* names.

Is there a solution to this other than just going with a fresh install of 20.3? Thanks

[MAlfare]

Is there a solution to this other than just going with a fresh install of 20.3? Thanks

If you have a timeshift snapshot before the upgrade, you can go back and try again.
If not: Why not?

[KenInLansingMI]

Why not?
The question I have: Was I supposed to remove the items flagged by the various mintupgrade check steps? If I am supposed to do that, then what would make the end result any different?

[MAlfare]

Why not?
The question I have: Was I supposed to remove the items flagged by the various mintupgrade check steps? If I am supposed to do that, then what would make the end result any different?

If you would have, you had a chance to try something different.

There are a lot of: " "How to upgrade to Linux Mint 20"

In this:
https://linuxmint-user-guide.readthedoc ... nt-20.html
You could read:

• Preparation
  Apply all package updates
  Create a system snapshot

[KenInLansingMI]

That is the exact document that I used. I have a Timeshift backup. If I do exactly what I did before, how will it be different? (I have a 43 year history in computers from mainframes, through AIX, Novell, Windows and Active Directory, and some Linux.) I had a straight-forward installation of 19.3 (no PPAs or 3rd party products). I ran mintupgrade check atpproximately 6 times until it indicated that no additional items needed to be deleted with apt autoremove. In the words of the upgrade instructions at that point I "was happy with the output." I then downloaded the package updates and applied the upgrade. There were no foreign packages to downgrade or delete. Somewhere the windowing server items were lost apparently.

All my former upgrades from 14 to 19 were done by completely wiping the machine and installing fresh. This time I thought I would try this upgrade process so that I would not have to recreate several accounts for myself and a few family members, as well as remembering what customizations I had done. Maybe I overreached.

[kato181]

There are some issues with the upgrade from LM 19.3 to LM 20 on certain occasions. It is far safer to back up your important files, and do a fresh install of LM20

[MAlfare]

That is the exact document that I used.
All my former upgrades from 14 to 19 were done by completely wiping the machine and installing fresh.

I used the same.
I always upgraded, fresh installations I made only on new machines or when changing from 32- to 64-bit versions.

From 19.3 to 20 there I had two different scenarios:
On a laptop it went straight forward,

on the desktop I had to:
delete 3rd party repositories (8)
downgrade a long list of "incorrect versions"
downgrade foreign packages

After Upgrade: "ERROR: Failed to install additional packages" "archive.ubuntu.com " could not be resolved:
Try: apt-get update --fix-missing
Which I did.
Then it was done and working.

BTW: my history in computers began in 1975. The first machine I had to service was a UNIVAC 9200