System won't boot after failed update

[kageman]

My system crashed during an update and there was nothing I could do, except to shut my system off and turn it back on. Ever since, the system won't load. I can get past the GRUB loader, but once the splash screen loads, it just sits there and does absolutely nothing else.

I used the repair feature by booting into recovery mode, but after updating/reinstalling about 130 or so packages, I'm still getting the same problem. I using a live CD at the moment to access my system, but I can't seem to find an option to repair my system without doing a fresh install. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[molecule-eye]

Re: System won't boot after failed update

I had exactly the same problem. Unfortunately I ended up doing a fresh install and then updating to KDE 4.5.3 via the backports and got exactly the same problem! To fix it I did the following. Connect to the internet via ethernet cable. Boot into recovery mode. Drop into a command prompt with networking. Do an apt-get dist-upgrade or aptitude -f safe-upgrade (or the like). After updating type "startkde". If it says you don't have the required package then install the one it lists (I forgot which). Reboot and everything should work. At least, it did for me!

Good luck!

[kageman]

Re: System won't boot after failed update

I had exactly the same problem. Unfortunately I ended up doing a fresh install and then updating to KDE 4.5.3 via the backports and got exactly the same problem! To fix it I did the following. Connect to the internet via ethernet cable. Boot into recovery mode. Drop into a command prompt with networking. Do an apt-get dist-upgrade or aptitude -f safe-upgrade (or the like). After updating type "startkde". If it says you don't have the required package then install the one it lists (I forgot which). Reboot and everything should work. At least, it did for me!

Good luck!

Thanks that did help for the most part. I used the second command (aptitude) and that worked fine, although for some reason, startkde didn't work because it was not installed, but even after I installed it, it wouldn't load for some display-related reason.

The odd thing was that instead of installing/upgrading to fix my system, it actually REMOVED about 25 packages that were installed, and then it worked. I'm not sure why/how that worked exactly, but except for missing a bunch of plasmoids, my system has worked fine since then. So thanks again.

By the way, among my missing plasmoids is the "Show Desktop" one, which I can't seem to find anywhere online for download. Does anyone know where/how I can get it (without starting a new thread)?

[Snowhog]

Re: [Solved] System won't boot after failed update

Install plasma-widgets-addons. Verify that you do have plasma-desktop installed.

[kageman]

Re: System won't boot after failed update

I removed the "Solved" from the title, as I'm having this problem again. Except this time, none of the above solutions will work.

Here's what happened. X Window System crashed so I have to force shutdown my computer using the power button (to my knowledge there's no other way around fixing that problem). When I turned my computer back on, the login screen came up (which never has since I'm the only user) and my password didn't work. I tried repairs in recovery mode and that didn't work. I rebooted the computer again and it booted right into the command console (after turning it off and back on), which continued to happen. Using the commands I was recommended to use previously, there were no updates available and nothing else would work. So now every time I turn on my computer, KDE doesn't load and typing in the "startkde" command gives me some X-related display error.