Restore point / Rollback for Ubuntu 20.04 / browser bookmark file?

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Michael L

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Oct 10, 2021, 2:18:03 PM10/10/21
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I have an Ubuntu 20.04 system that's not booting; appears to boot but stops at a black screen.  It was running fine till I ran (delayed) updates; wasn't able to update for 7 weeks- a Kubuntu 20.04 system took the delayed updates without problem.

On Fedora it seems I was easily able to roll back to a previous state with updates gone awry.  I believe I did an LVM install, but never fully configured the whole snapshot thing.

The only "data" to retrieve is Chromium browser bookmarks which I'll google how to do next.  I'm ready to reinstall U20 if necessary, but if there's an easier way, I'll take it.  I want to set up either a Synology NAS or separate Linux box running NFS to store future snapshots once I get that process configured.

Thanks in advance (and past) for excellent input.
  M

Howard White

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Oct 10, 2021, 2:34:53 PM10/10/21
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Michael,

So what happens if you boot that system from a live CD / USB
thumbdrive?? A: does it boot? B: if it boots, can you get to the
files on the drive?

This situation is one reason I make sure to turn off the motherboard
splash screens that hide the boot process. At the moment, a log file
that would point out the system halt is not coming to mind.

Yes, LVM can make that exciting.

Howard
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Michael L

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Oct 10, 2021, 3:31:46 PM10/10/21
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I did boot from Ubu20 DVD and can see the files and am trying to copy home folder off HDD- permission issues.

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Michael L

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Oct 10, 2021, 3:35:24 PM10/10/21
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The file / folder I want most is the Chromium HTML bookmark file is one with permission issues

Michael L

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Oct 10, 2021, 3:39:48 PM10/10/21
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And I should have mentione earlier that I did explore Advanced boot options to no avail.

"Computer" shows 8.3GB of 8.4GB available.  Maybe that's part of the problem.  

Michael L

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Oct 10, 2021, 3:51:22 PM10/10/21
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Scratch the 8.3GB thing, read that wrong 😁

Tilghman Lesher

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Oct 11, 2021, 1:50:29 PM10/11/21
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My suspicion is that it is booting, just that the graphics card
(driver) is messed up sufficiently that it's not able to bring up an
image. If you're able to boot from the CD/DVD, you should be able to
change the boot entry to add the keyword 'text' and remove the
gfxmode. If this works to boot it, but you're still having trouble
with seeing the screen at the end of the boot, then it's definitely a
graphics driver issue.

You might be able to do a recovery install with the DVD, without
erasing the contents of /home. Alternatively, if you've discovered
that the system is indeed booting (but you just can't see it), but you
previously activated SSHD, you should be able to SSH in and backup the
files that you want to see before attempting a reinstall.

Another approach is to pull the graphics card, connect your monitor to
the built-in graphics adapter, and boot that way. I've found that
some systems will come up that way when the graphics driver is screwed
up after an update.
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Michael L

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Oct 11, 2021, 11:18:07 PM10/11/21
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I believe you're right as the recovery mode got me a command line.

I had to get it going quickly so I did a reinstall, but this will help in the future.

Thanks again everyone.
  






glyphrider

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Oct 13, 2021, 8:07:48 AM10/13/21
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I've seen this issue before -- ironically on a System 76 laptop and *only* with Pop_OS (Ubuntu worked fine, at the time). It seems to be linked to a buggy version of plymouth, or misconfigured drivers in the initrd. I never really figured out which. But it seems that the laptop did boot, only with a blacked out display. Booting from alternate media was successful, and I could always force my way into the installed OS. 
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