Mint 21.3-Mate: Unable to restore from Timeshift after recent update disabled my 2015 macbook air

[drove5959]

I have been running Linux Mint 21.3 on my 2015 macbook air for about a month now, but after I updated it yesterday, when I rebooted it all I got was the apple question mark file prompting me to visit support.apple.com/mac/startup. I booted into a live session, opened Timeshift, selected the most recent backup, and tried to restore. Seemed successful, but when I rebooted, my computer displayed the mint logo, told me to remove the installation media then hit enter, then stuck that way for hours before I gave up and forced shutdown. I have tried toying with the timeshift settings and using an older backup to no avail. It either freezes during the timeshift package prep or during the restore or upon reboot. I'm a beginner, just making the transition to seeing terminal commands as actual commands instead of magical incantations to be whispered at the witching hour on a moonless night. I have scoured the web and tried a bunch of different things only to get more questions than answers.
I have two goals: to restore data from my backup and (way more importantly) to get my laptop functional again. It wouldn't be the end of the world to just do a fresh install (assuming it would be functional) since I have most of my data backed up externally, but I want to know what's up in case I run into this again! Edit: I'm also now afraid to update my 2007 macbook running 21.3 xfce.

Code: Select all

System info:
  Kernel: 5.15.0-91-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.4.0 Desktop: MATE 1.26.0
    info: mate-panel wm: marco 1.26.0 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
    base: Ubuntu 22.04 jammy
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Apple product: MacBookAir7,1 v: 1.0 serial: <superuser required> Chassis:
    type: 9 v: Mac-9F18E312C5C2BF0B serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Apple model: Mac-9F18E312C5C2BF0B v: MacBookAir7,1 serial: <superuser required>
    UEFI: Apple v: 486.0.0.0.0 date: 08/03/2023
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 20.4 Wh (64.2%) condition: 31.8/38.8 Wh (82.0%) volts: 7.4 min: 7.6
    model: SMP bq20z451 type: Li-ion serial: N/A status: Discharging cycles: 806
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: Intel Core i5-5250U bits: 64 type: MT MCP smt: enabled arch: Broadwell
    rev: 4 cache: L1: 128 KiB L2: 512 KiB L3: 3 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 2581 high: 2698 min/max: 500/2700 cores: 1: 2501 2: 2698 3: 2500 4: 2628
    bogomips: 12800
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 6000 vendor: Apple driver: i915 v: kernel ports: active: eDP-1
    empty: DP-1, DP-2, HDMI-A-1, HDMI-A-2 bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:1626 class-ID: 0300
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.4 compositor: marco v: 1.26.0 driver: X:
    loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa gpu: i915 display-ID: :0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1366x768 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 361x203mm (14.2x8.0") s-diag: 414mm (16.3")
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: Apple Color LCD res: 1366x768 hz: 60 dpi: 133
    size: 260x140mm (10.2x5.5") diag: 295mm (11.6") modes: 1366x768
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 6000 (BDW GT3) v: 4.6 Mesa 23.0.4-0ubuntu1~22.04.1
    direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Broadwell-U Audio vendor: Apple driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:03.0
    chip-ID: 8086:160c class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: Intel Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:9ca0 class-ID: 0403
  Device-3: Broadcom 720p FaceTime HD Camera driver: N/A pcie: speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:1570 class-ID: 0480
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.15.0-91-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.99.1 running: yes
  Sound Server-3: PipeWire v: 0.3.48 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Broadcom BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Apple
    driver: bcma-pci-bridge v: N/A pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:43a0
    class-ID: 0280
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 248.48 GiB used: 47.96 GiB (19.3%)
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Apple model: SSD AP0256H size: 233.76 GiB speed: 16 Gb/s lanes: 4
    type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 7.844.01 temp: 33.9 C scheme: GPT
  ID-2: /dev/sda type: USB vendor: Transcend model: JetFlash Transcend 16GB size: 14.72 GiB
    type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 1100 scheme: MBR
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 1.86 GiB used: 97.3 MiB (5.1%) fs: overlay source: ERR-102
Swap:
  Alert: No swap data was found.
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: Hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 11 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s
    chip-ID: 1d6b:0002 class-ID: 0900
  Device-1: 1-2:2 info: Transcend Information JetFlash type: Mass Storage driver: usb-storage
    interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s power: 200mA chip-ID: 8564:1000 class-ID: 0806
    serial: <filter>
  Device-2: 1-5:3 info: Apple Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad type: HID,Keyboard,Mouse
    driver: apple,bcm5974,usbhid interfaces: 3 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s power: 500mA
    chip-ID: 05ac:0290 class-ID: 0301 serial: <filter>
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: Super-speed hub ports: 4 rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
    class-ID: 0900
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 58.0 C pch: 45.5 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: apt: 2087
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
    1: deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 21.3 _Virginia_ - Release amd64 20240109]/ jammy contrib main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list
    1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com virginia main upstream import backport
    2: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy main restricted universe multiverse
    3: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates main restricted universe multiverse
    4: deb http: //archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
    5: deb http: //security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy-security main restricted universe multiverse
Info:
  Processes: 216 Uptime: 2h 18m wakeups: 3 Memory: 3.73 GiB used: 1.14 GiB (30.5%) Init: systemd
  v: 249 runlevel: 5 Compilers: gcc: 11.4.0 alt: 11/12 Client: Unknown python3.10 client
  inxi: 3.3.13

[mikeflan]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I want to know what's up in case I run into this again!

Unfortunately I'm not going to be much help here. That is an odd problem to have, although I have heard of similar problems on non-apple hardware.

One thing you might want to do with the 2007 macbook, and then this one if you get it working again, is to take a full disk image with Foxclone. Store the image on an external drive. Then you can get back to the way your were when the image was taken.

[Reddog1]

I'm running 21.2 on several macs, including a 2012 air. My oldest is a 2009 macbook, and all are updated and none have problems. I haven't upped to 21.3 because I'm running perfectly with 21.2 and see no reason to, so the problem could be confined to 21.3

It appears that you either have a hardware problem or that your grub has somehow gone south. MacOS doesn't recognize linux, so of course you get the no boot drive found question mark, even if the linux efi exists.

With your live usb, what does gparted see? Hopefully, your drive and partitions, including the efi. If so, you can try Boot Repair from the live disk.

Your air is supported with macOS Monterey, and will be for a couple more years. Is there a reason you aren't dual-booting linux/macOS? I wouldn't wipe a supported apple system just to install linux, and my wife's air is a 2015 with Monterey and Mint 20.2. But that's me.

I would caution anyone reading this, before you install linux make a macOS usb boot disk, just in case something goes really wrong. It happened to me once...........