Timeshift does not respond and I need to restore another snapshot

[nick_nick]

Good day all, this isn't my day today.
I wanted to change my etc/fstab to correct another problem, so I took a Timeshift snapshot before.

Then I decided that before changing my etc/fstab I could try to restore a previous Timeshift snapshot from 1 month ago in case it restored the correct etc/fstab.

Timeshift finished the dry run and came up with the usual list of restore files BUT when pressing Next it did not respond , so I selected all files (ctrl A) and pressed next which worked for some time and then shut the system and restarted.

From that point LibreOffice 6.4 does not respond when trying to open spreadsheets (it does open text odt files) and so I decided to restore the Timeshift snapshot I created half an hour ago.

Now ... Timeshift does not respond !
I restarted my LM twice but Timeshift does not respond !

Any idea what can I do now ?

[coffee412]

Normally what I do concerning the fstab file is boot from the live usb and mount the installed linux Mint and edit the fstab file.

You might be able to see what is wrong if you open up a term window and start timeshift there.

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timeshift-launcher

[nick_nick]

timeshift-launcher =>
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

???

I forgot to mention that the UPDATE Manager also does NOT respond

[rene]

That's more or less the Linux variant of the famous Microsoft "Something went wrong" error message. I.e., as error messages go, not too useful. But, well, I'd try and reinstall Timeshift:

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sudo apt-get install --reinstall timeshift

If that doesn't solve it you'd need some deeper digging to fix that mess.

[rene]

I'm by the way not a Timeshift user but I take it it's fairly straightforward to use from a Mint Live/Installer USB. That's going to be your best best. If needed ask around for how to use Timeshift from said Live system (but it's probably clear).

[Moem]

I take it it's fairly straightforward to use from a Mint Live/Installer USB.

It is. As I remember it, you need to tell it to Restore and browse to the location where the snapshots are stored, then pick the one you want.

[nick_nick]

nk@nk-LIFEBOOK-E736:~$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall timeshift
sudo: /usr/bin/sudo must be owned by uid 0 and have the setuid bit set

[rene]

Yeah, do the Live/Installer USB thing...

[nick_nick]

Free space 0 bytes

fantastic

[rene]

If that's to say you don't have a Mint Live/Installer USB ready and need to download it to somewhere to create it: if you have another system available to download it and create it from that's going to be easiest. If not: given that you want it for restoration let's not advise you to go delete some snapshots from /timeshift. Maybe sudo apt-get clean is enough, maybe flatpak uninstall --all is.

[nick_nick]

I have my previous laptop working and a very recent backup so I will soon be ok.

Thanks for your help.

[coffee412]

Let me drop this here:

Try booting from live usb and then mount the mint install :

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chown root:root /mnt/<mint install>/usr/bin/sudo 
chmod 4755 /mnt/<mint install>/usr/bin/sudo

I would also entertain the idea of the whole directory (/sbin) and also (bin).

Reboot into the mint install and see if you can work with that.

[rene]

Allow me advise against the just above. I.e., just restore an old(er) snapshot and don't go poking at individual issues...

[coffee412]

If what I suggested does not work on '/usr/sbin/sudo' then what harm? You run timeshift and it will replace it anyways.

I am not recommending the whole directories but on can compare the permissions of /usr/sbin/sudo and others in the directory. Its a good bet that timeshift (or something) also affected all the files in the directory.

[rene]

The harm it does it that poster was someone scared enough to edit a text file to then go ahead and completely implode their system instead, and that as such advanced advise is way more likely to further confuse rather than help. I.e., just Timeshift the thing back to a working state (and with or without a line for the reader in /etc/fstab which triggered this clusterrainbow -- it's as said a simple edit away from being correct again anyway).

[Moem]

clusterrainbow

(But seriously. Do the Timeshift-from-live-Mint thing.)

[coffee412]

The harm it does it that poster was someone scared enough to edit a text file to then go ahead and completely implode their system instead, and that as such advanced advise is way more likely to further confuse rather than help. I.e., just Timeshift the thing back to a working state (and with or without a line for the reader in /etc/fstab which triggered this clusterrainbow -- it's as said a simple edit away from being correct again anyway).

I understand you totally. However, I just want to add that you recommend that the OP do the same thing that screwed it up in the first place.

Im not picking at you. Im just saying OK?

If the OP had to alter permissions on two files then it would be better to teach them how to do that instead of totally replacing everything. Its just a matter of opinion. Everything is hard when you first start out.

BTW, I enjoy your posts and can tell your very knowledgeable.

[coffee412]

@Moem - I have been outvoted. I guess whatever solves the problem.

Whenever something like that happens to me, It reminds me of Roy Schneider on jaws when they zoom in on him at the beach when the little boy is attacked.

[rene]

Admittedly Timeshift likely won't shift /timeshift. I as said don't use it but blindly assumed later snapshots than the restored one to be deleted -- which come to think of it is in fact likely not the case, and that means poster still has the disk-full issue, and that means we know why they aren't back yet...

To poster: if the above then you will need to delete a few of the latest snapshots manually first, or clear out /var/lib/flapak, or /var/cache/apt, or...

[bendipa]

Good day all, this isn't my day today.
I wanted to change my etc/fstab to correct another problem, so I took a Timeshift snapshot before.

Then I decided that before changing my etc/fstab I could try to restore a previous Timeshift snapshot from 1 month ago in case it restored the correct etc/fstab.

Timeshift finished the dry run and came up with the usual list of restore files BUT when pressing Next it did not respond , so I selected all files (ctrl A) and pressed next which worked for some time and then shut the system and restarted.

From that point LibreOffice 6.4 does not respond when trying to open spreadsheets (it does open text odt files) and so I decided to restore the Timeshift snapshot I created half an hour ago.

Now ... Timeshift does not respond !
I restarted my LM twice but Timeshift does not respond !

Any idea what can I do now ?

Well, you didn't need to use Timeshift at all, originally. You wanted to alter your fstab file. So all you had to do was take a copy of fstab (call it fstab2), then make your alterations to fstab. If that went awry, and you could not boot up, then it's a simple matter to restore back to the original fstab (eg from your USB Live Mint drive).

As for LibreOffice, you don't have the most recent one. We're up to v.7.5 now, so your 6.4 version is getting a bit old now. Again, you can re-install the whole thing, or just install the modules of Office you use. In your case lust re-install LibreOffice Calc. No need for Timeshift, which in my view is overrated as a back-up tool. I think there are better ones which don't fill-up your HDD/SSD.