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I have very recently updated from 20.04 to 22.04.1 LTS on my HP elitebook 840 G8 through sudo do-release-upgrade.

The installation looked correct but when it asked me to reboot I could never access the GUI anymore.

The system is apparently on 22.04 as the lsb release -a gives me the output I expect (Description: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS).

When I start the GUI from a command line sudo systemctl isolate graphical it gives me this error: mtd device must be supplied (device name is empty).

Additionally when I run the dmesg it gives me an error Could not resolve symbol [\TZ. ETMD]. I am on a fully updated UEFI BIOS.

I also tried the usual sudo apt-get clean, sudo apt-get update. The update works but gives me some warnings about jammy not having the resource "stella.cmit" available.

Can someone explain to me what is going on, please? I am completely lost.

7
  • 1
    Try the command startx. Aug 13, 2022 at 8:26
  • Oh yeah I had forgot to mention startx returns the something went wrong white screen.
    – danaroth
    Aug 13, 2022 at 8:28
  • Can you take a picture of the error message with your phone and post it? Aug 13, 2022 at 8:29
  • 2
    Also try sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop Aug 13, 2022 at 8:29
  • It says it cannot find the package ubuntu-desktop and about the error at startx it says can't find file "en" for symbols include.
    – danaroth
    Aug 13, 2022 at 8:34

8 Answers 8

19

I had the same issue; just solved it.

The reason I couldn't do sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop that my software repository list (/etc/apt/sources.list) had been messed up. Luckily I was able to use nano to edit the sources.list file via command line, and after that, sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop worked like a charm!

1
  • How to use 'nano' to edit the sources.list? I'm having the same issue as you.
    – Tom
    Mar 7 at 20:50
3

I faced a similar issue when I updated my system with an update that looked weird (don't really know how to explain it otherwise). So first I ran the command sudo apt-get dist-upgrade just to make sure that the upgrade was done properly. After that I reinstalled ubuntu-desktop with the command sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop and that solved the problem (It also installed some games like cards and mahjong).

1
  • This worked for me. I successfully upgraded to 22.04.3 and then installed VPN, etc. Next reboot X would not start. Arrg! But a reinstall of ubuntu-desktop recovered. I see some bootup errors but they seem to be minor.
    – dturvene
    Aug 30, 2023 at 14:11
2

It seems to be a bug in 22.04. I had the same problem after upgrading from 21.04 to 22.04. I couldn't fix it and restored my 21.04 image again.

After a lot of Google research I found this bug entry. Unfortunately, this only helps to a limited extent when the system no longer boots.

In several places I read, that manual entries of hdd partitions in fstab could be the source of the problem. In my case that could be true also. So far, however, I could not bring myself to test the upgrade again ;-)

1
  • I ended up going for a 22.04 fresh install instead! It took some time to reinstall all packages but the experience was way smoother than the upgrade. Luckily I also had all the critical data backed up (and the less critical one was also recoverable from the terminal anyway).
    – danaroth
    Aug 14, 2022 at 10:46
2

This worked for me:

(a) Check the setting

sudo systemctl get-default

(b) Reset if it does not report 'graphical.target'

sudo systemctl set-default graphical

Then reboot and it should boot into the UI again.

1
  • This worked for me on Ubuntu 23.04.
    – jeremiah
    May 30, 2023 at 3:38
1

I encountered the same issue. And the same error :

error: mtd device must be supplied (device name is empty)

when trying to access GUI from command line. Tried to reinstall ubuntu desktop via:

sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

but reinstall attempt failed and logged something about missing pipewire package in latest version. I installed missing package following steps described here:

https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-pipewire-on-ubuntu-linux

Then I tried to reinstall desktop again and this time it worked and swiched to desktop straight away, so, worked like a charm. Hope it helps someone.

1

I tried the following:

sudo apt-get --fix-broken install
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo reboot now

However, GUI was still unresponsive, so I reinstalled the desktop with:

sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-desktop

This worked for me.

0

I have encountered the same issue and this worked for me:

$ sudo systemctl isolate graphical

What this line will do is that it will start the gui manually.

0

Use startx command, if it doesn't work use: sudo apt-get --fix-broken install sudo apt-get update && sudo apt upgrade -y sudo reboot now

1
  • This is nearly a copy of the answer above by Anjali.
    – zx485
    Jan 13 at 23:09

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