[DESKTOP] Can not get to desktop after update

[steve7233]

I saw that there were updates so I told Discover to update. I rebooted. Now I can't login. I get what appears to be an onscreen keyboard. I clicked a few keys until it went to the graphical log in screen. I typing my password like it asks for then press enter
.. Nothing happens. The display is all wrong so if I need to click something then it's probably beyond the screen so I can not click on anything. I can get to a console if I knew what commands to enter. I suspect it's the wrong aspect ratio.

Possible a plug & play issue as the monitor is old. I was hoping to play my game tonight. I thought I was updating but it seems like a downgrade. Please help.

[steve7233]

I just tried a previous kernal... Still hosed.

[steve7233]

Now it won't boot at all. I guess I will have to reinstall Kubuntu 19.10 and just not update it until the Ubuntu devs fix what is broken in the update.

[jlittle]

I doubt if your problem is so deterministic. Bad updates happen; I like to know why, but rarely find out.

I suggest not using Discover, rather using a konsole and running sudo apt update followed by sudo apt full-upgrade. I think there's types of failures that you might see that Discover doesn't handle.

A solid backup or snapshot before doing an upgrade is a good idea, so that you can back it out if necessary.

(Apologies if that sounds like stating the obvious and a bit preachy.)

[steve7233]

I have been using muon because everytime I try Discover it is bugged. I haven't tried in several months and sure enough it failed again. I guess Discover never will be any good. I have to reinstall Kubuntu 19.10 as it won't even boot now. I will remove Discover after reinstalling so I won't be tempted to ever try that useless program again.

[jlittle]

I find the Discover notifications useful.

[steve7233]

I am currently logged into a tty but switched to DVI. DVI seems to display 1080p better but I think the GUI is trying to use HDMI which can't display of course. The tty can display the text. Xrandr says 'can't open display'. How do I get xorg to switch from HDMI to DVI?

[jlittle]

I am currently logged into a tty ... Xrandr says 'can't open display'

I have perhaps less understanding of your display problems than you do, but I think I understand that message. X programs (like xrandr) find the X server to use using the DISPLAY environment variable. You get that message if the variable is not set, which is not normally in a tty. Here's a dialogue I got in a tty just now:

$ xrandr
Can't open display
$ export DISPLAY=:0
$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 16384 x 16384
HDMI-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-2 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 477mm x 268mm
 1920x1080     59.93*+  60.00
 1680x1050     59.88
 1280x1024     75.02    60.02
 1280x960      60.00
 1152x864      75.00
 1024x768      75.03    60.00
 832x624       74.55
 800x600       75.00    60.32    56.25
 640x480       75.00    59.94
 720x400       70.08
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-3 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

Maybe X died, and you can find out why by running "startx"; I only use that now with systemrescuecd. Experimenting just now killed off KDE and I had to reboot.

[steve7233]

I typed starts and pressed enter. I got a blank black screen. Nothing happens when I press a key. Looks like a reinstall is necessary.

[steve7233]

Spell check. 🙄I typed startx.

[steve7233]

I tried system rescue from a USB. I couldn't even get a console to run.

[steve7233]

I may have fixed it by installing the Kubuntu desktop. I had to go some place but at least I can boot again. Further testing later.

[steve7233]

I have no audio. Maybe DVI doesn't have audio.

[steve7233]

It won't do DVI anymore. How do I get apt to reinstall the Kubuntu desktop?