Boot & theme issues with Cinnamon.

[expat_tony]

Feeling thoroughly ticked off with myself at the moment. I added Firebug (a CSS debugger) extension to Firefox. On restarting, I first got a black screen. Next time, grub was there but led only to an unblinking cursor arrow, not an underline, in the top left corner. I found two similar posts on the first page of the Cinnamon forum, but what happened next to me is different.

I went to Mint Recoverý, and ended up in Fallback mode. Unfortunately there was no FF desktop icon to shout for help with.
On trying Mint in grub again, I was back at that black screen + cursor, but hit a few keys on the far right of the keyboard, and suddenly I was in Cinnamon, but with differences:
- no custom theme, not even default Cinnamon, but instead a flat grey with no light to dark gradients.
- my custom background image was there
- the cinnamon menu was there with the right colour and slight transparency
- but most desktop, menu and panel icons are different. I wonder if they're Gnome desktop vintage, or Ubuntu, certainly not Mint-X. The desktop launcher icon is a board with a spring under it (springboard, geddit?), the settings icon is two crossed tools. Nemo folder icons are a drab light brown. I changed Settings -> Themes to various options, but nothing changes.
- the highlighter, progress bars etc are dark blue.

I wonder if nVidia might have something to do with this, conflicting with FF. Having got rid of Firebug already, I could go back to nouveau via Driver Manager and see what happens. Is it really that straightfoward or do I need to do other stuff?
One of the other threads "I broke Cinnamon" described how it was fixed by

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apt-get install --reinstall cinnamon

What would this involve for me - assuming it worked, reinstalling all applets, custom icons etc?
I didn't need to load that damn add-on. Grrrrr!!!

Would you believe it! I can't post inxi, I just discovered the Terminal stays black when I type.
Here are two screenshots of the symptoms Does anyone recognise the vintage of those icons?:

Nemo_brown.png

Bad icons.png

[gtsfer]

Feeling thoroughly ticked off with myself at the moment. I added Firebug (a CSS debugger) extension to Firefox. On restarting, I first got a black screen. Next time, grub was there but led only to an unblinking cursor arrow, not an underline, in the top left corner.

Just so we have the whole picture, what prompted you to restart after installing the Firebug extension? Do you mean restarting Firefox or Cinnamon? It sounds like you needed to restart Cinnamon after you loaded that extension or that something else prompted you to do so.

Not sure but I think "reinstall cinnamon" might do just that and that custom applets, icons, etc would get lost. I'll have to check, but I'm sure somebody knows and might beat me to it.

[expat_tony]

But if I prepare properly and know what I'm losing, it would be only about an hour's work to get the 20 items back on my opening screen. I think I'll check with someone who did it. And I'd welcome such info from anyone reading this.

[expat_tony]

What prompted me to restart Cinnamon was that when I clicked on the Firebug icon, the page hung.
More on the terminal: it is not dead, but it's printing what I type in black on black. Very useful, not. But maybe someone knows what causes this symptom.
Progress! The terminal output is readable when I highlight it to copy, so here it is:

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~ $ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: tony-Lenovo-IdeaPad-U410-Touch Kernel: 3.13.0-24-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.2)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 2.2.16 (Gtk 3.10.8~3+qiana)
           Distro: Linux Mint 17 Qiana
Machine:   System: LENOVO product: Lenovo IdeaPad U410 Touch v: Lenovo IdeaPad U410 Touch
           Mobo: LENOVO model: Lenovo v: 31900003WIN8 STD MLT
           Bios: LENOVO v: 65CN99WW date: 07/08/2013
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i7-3537U (-HT-MCP-) cache: 4096 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 9977
           Clock Speeds: 1: 1300 MHz 2: 1500 MHz 3: 775 MHz 4: 1500 MHz
Graphics:  Card-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller
           bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Card-2: NVIDIA GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M]
           bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.15.1 driver: nvidia
           Resolution: 1366x768@60.1hz
           GLX Renderer: GeForce 710M/PCIe/SSE2
           GLX Version: 4.4.0 NVIDIA 331.38 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k3.13.0-24-generic
Network:   Card-1: Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
           driver: r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI port: 2000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230
           driver: iwlwifi v: in-tree: bus-ID: 04:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 1024.2GB (2.9% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: RDM size: 24.0GB temp: 128C
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: ST1000LM024_HN size: 1000.2GB temp: 31C
Partition: ID-1: / size: 18G used: 6.1G (38%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: /home size: 595G used: 7.9G (2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb9
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 15.73GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb8
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 43.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:39C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 182 Uptime: 18:02 Memory: 1268.7/7843.8MB
           Init: Upstart runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.2
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.111) inxi: 2.2.2

[gtsfer]

Temporary fix... in Cinnamon I think it's right-click in Terminal. Change profile settings, make it white text on black background or something you can see for now. I see your graphics drivers have not changed at all, which is good. I don't see how they could have with a FF extension, but you never know.

[austin.texas]

It almost sounds like you are logged in as root instead of tony.
What does the prompt in the terminal say?
user@host ~$

I would be inclined to boot the live Mint DVD and backup all hidden files and folders in /home/tony/, then replace them all with your most recent backup.
There may be a less radical solution someone could suggest.

You can adjust the colors in a terminal by right-click on the middle of the area > Profiles > Profile Preferences, as gtsfer said.

[expat_tony]

I can now write in white over the terminal's black, and even better, I know how to repair this in future, thanks. FYI I had to uncheck the "Use colors from system theme" box. More evidence that the theme got screwed up?

I'm logged in with $ not #, by the way. I've made a Multisystem USB with - as yet - only LMC 64-bit on it. Hope it works, otherwise I'll be crossing my fingers with the grub menu on the EFI partition again.

EDIT, Phew, that was painless! I'm in the live session now. One thing puzzles me though, the German keyboard I use worked straight away. Is there a new feature in Live CD that recognises your locale or even existing hardware? Just went into settings and yep, there it is, no sign of English (US) nor English (GB)

[gtsfer]

More evidence that the theme got screwed up?

Maybe so, it sounds like it.

I've made a Multisystem USB with - as yet - only LMC 64-bit on it. Hope it works, otherwise I'll be crossing my fingers with the grub menu on the EFI partition again.

EDIT, Phew, that was painless! One thing puzzles me though, the German keyboard I use worked straight away. Is there a new feature in Live CD that recognises your locale or even existing hardware? Just went into settings and yep, there it is, no sign of English (US) nor English (GB)

What distro is that, KDE? I guess it's possible that even a live mode session might somehow get locale info from your installed version. Not sure about that part.

That multi-system USB you have there has a Grub menu from the sound of it. Never tried it myself. But isn't that Grub on the USB stick and separate from your installed Grub on the hard disk? Or do they include entries from what's installed on hard disk too? (my external USB has this, but I expected that since I didn't disconnect the hard drive when I installed C17 and Debian to that drive. os-prober finds everything that's attached and adds them all to Grub)

But there's still 2 different Grubs installed either way. The Grub that's installed on your hard disk won't include stuff on that USB stick I'll bet.

[austin.texas]

@ gtsfer
I believe the comment about the Multisystem usb was simply to mention that if the hard drive's GRUB didn't work, he would have to fall back on the live Mint on the usb.

That is when the Rescatux/SuperGrub2 CD comes in handy - it will boot your installed Mint on the hard drive even when the hard drive's GRUB is messed up.
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/rescatux/

[gtsfer]

@ gtsfer
I believe the comment about the Multisystem usb was simply to mention that if the hard drive's GRUB didn't work, he would have to fall back on the live Mint on the usb.

That is when the Rescatux/SuperGrub2 CD comes in handy - it will boot your installed Mint on the hard drive even when the hard drive's GRUB is messed up.
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/rescatux/

I get it, one never thinks much about "backing up" Grub. But I do have one now that I think about it, the Grub on my external USB drive. It's a good point that Tony was making. I also have a Rescatux/SuperGrub2 CD as it turns out. One of your posts or someone's must have pointed me to it somewhere along the line.

[expat_tony]

And while in the live session, I've done this...

GP_nodeadspace.png

But now, what next, how to get back to an installed Cinnamon the way I want it?

Did anyone recognise any of those icons, by the way? If several come from one directory / repository, it'll maybe provide a clue to what broke and what didn't.

Fundamentally, a lot of Cinnamon is still there, even the customisation of two panels top and bottom didn't change. Nor did the workspace switcher icon. I think it's Mint-X that went wrong - or should I say the interface between Mint-X and...what?
What is Mint-X? Fundamentally graphics, right? Which brings me back to suspecting that nVidia and Firebug didn't get along. One other odd thing I've noticed is that, since nVidia has been my driver, so before this incident, the noise level from inside my laptop is considerably higher when I run Celestia or Stellarium, both graphics-intensive programs. That wasn't so when running nouveau.
Those are symptoms, I haven't a clue where they point. Just hope someone reads this who knows better.

[austin.texas]

Please make sure you have the latest version of inxi

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sudo inxi -U

then give me the result of the command:

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inxi -po

and this command:

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cat /etc/fstab

I suspect a problem with the way that partition is mounted.

[gtsfer]

I can't keep track of your partitions from day to day. It looks like you expanded into that 68 GB of unallocated space that was there and got rid of it. But what's those 2 at sdb10 and sdb11 that are the same size now?
(back to this thread... http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 20#p920286.

Maybe you should label them while in gparted. It helps you keep track of what's what. (like C17 Root, C17 Home... but leave the Windows ones alone).

Here's an idea you may or may not like. You have a backup of your /home directory right? On an external drive? Right? Are you sure? Are you really really sure? (I'm playing Win Vista here).

Why not re-install. Take this as an opportunity to clean up those funky partitions, re-install from scratch with a clean partition setup, restore your /home from backup and have done with it.

I know, this probably doesn't appeal to you right off the bat, does it?

[dave843]

Tony,

In response to your pm, I don't think I lost any customizations I made, but I'm not certain. This is a new install, and I only remember adding one applet. It is there now, but I could have added it back in the meantime.

Dave

[expat_tony]

@austin.texas
The live boot inxi updated itself to 2.2.4

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$ inxi -po
Partition: ID-1: / size: 3.9G used: 64M (2%) fs: overlayfs dev: N/A
           ID-2: /isodevice size: 7.5G used: 1.3G (17%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/sdc1
           ID-3: /media/mint/d5bbc254-86a6-4a52-b97b-6da76f93450a size: 643G used: 8.0G (2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sdb9
           ID-4: swap-1 size: 15.73GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sdb8
Unmounted: ID-1: /dev/sda1 size: 19.00G
           fs: ext4 label: N/A uuid: 90157012-91d6-444d-b612-b569d276addb
           ID-2: /dev/sdb1 size: 1.05G label: WINRE_DRV uuid: DCA228E4A228C53C
           ID-3: /dev/sdb2 size: 0.27G label: SYSTEM_DRV uuid: F22B-5DC0
           ID-4: /dev/sdb3 size: 1.05G label: LRS_ESP uuid: A02B-9CBC
           ID-5: /dev/sdb4 size: 0.13G label: N/A uuid: N/A
           ID-6: /dev/sdb5 size: 220.20G
           label: Windows8_OS uuid: DAE22EF0E22ED095
           ID-7: /dev/sdb6 size: 26.84G label: LENOVO uuid: CE0235EE0235DC61
           ID-8: /dev/sdb7 size: 13.17G label: PBR_DRV uuid: 883631323631231C
           ID-9: /dev/sdb10 size: 10.40G
           fs: ext4 label: N/A uuid: 28a22f45-5b07-4a94-b341-e1ab2b8f6783
           ID-10: /dev/sdb11 size: 10.40G
           fs: ext4 label: N/A uuid: 29170cbd-a0f2-4bf0-b776-96d356f435e5

I have a question on this: Is sda1 (my root partition) unmounted because I'm in a live session, or is there another reason? (Must have been mounted before though, or I'd never have booted even a screwed-up Cinnamon, surely?)

cat /etc/fstab
overlayfs / overlayfs rw 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nosuid,nodev 0 0
/dev/sdb8 swap swap defaults 0 0

@gtsfer
sdb10 & 11 are partitions we discussed making for other mint installs.
Maybe it's because I've seen the gparted screen so often, but the partitioning now makes perfect sense to me. Forget about sdb6 & 7, that's Lenovo stuff. I don't know why they're at the end.

@dave...
Never mind. Thanks for answering anyway

[austin.texas]

Sorry, I wanted to see the results when you were booted into Mint on the hard drive.
Please post the /etc/fstab from the / partition on the hard drive.

[expat_tony]

Please post the /etc/fstab from the / partition on the hard drive.

I have to open the hard drive first to do that. Hope it works.
Meanwhile, there's a rash of people reporting the same thing
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=177936
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=178069
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 1&t=178045, plus of course dave843 who posted on this thread.
Looks like it might be a bug. I know that one of them also has an nVidia driver running, and I've asked the others to let me know.

[expat_tony]

Tony,

In response to your pm, I don't think I lost any customizations I made, but I'm not certain. This is a new install, and I only remember adding one applet. It is there now, but I could have added it back in the meantime.

Dave

Dave, could you tell us (or show us with inxi -G or Driver Manager) what driver you're running? Is it an nVidia by any chance?
Thanks

[gtsfer]

Meanwhile, there's a rash of people reporting the same thing...
Looks like it might be a bug. I know that one of them also has an nVidia driver running, and I've asked the others to let me know.

Fwiw... I am seeing no such thing on Cinnamon. I also have an nVidia driver loaded.

$ inxi -Gx
Graphics: Card: NVIDIA G72 [GeForce 7300 LE] bus-ID: 01:00.0
Display Server: X.Org 1.15.1 driver: nvidia Resolution: 1920x1200@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: GeForce 7300 LE/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 2.1.2 NVIDIA 304.117 Direct Rendering: Yes

Do you by any chance have level 4 and 5 updated turned on? (I don't, just curious).

[expat_tony]

It could be happening at the Ubuntu content level rather than Mint.
http://www.webupd8.org/2014/09/recent-u ... op-on.html
I'm departing to try the grub menu now. Back soon I hope (though not on this live boot )
Maybe we could even identify the update we received that caused the trouble. It'll be a September one. Is there such an archive?