Lubuntu 16.04 stuck at splash screen

Question

I have installed Lubuntu on an external drive with the tool mkusb. All worked well for months until yesterday, I am stuck at the splash screen and I dont know how I can solve this problem.

I have selected "persistent live" if that makes a difference, my system is a persistent one.

I can however load into recovery mode, this is the mode which I am in right now.

thanks for your time.

Answer 1

Your Lubuntu system boots into recovery mode.

• Does it boot into 'Try Lubuntu without installing' alias 'Live Only' without persistence? If that is the case, I think the partition for persistence and its file system is damaged. You can try to repair it, when not booted with persistence,

  sudo e2fsck -f /dev/sdx5
  

  where x is the drive letter, found via for example

  sudo lsblk -f`
  

• Otherwise, if it does not help or work to repair the file system, I suggest that you

  • recover the personal files (documents, pictures etc) that are important

  • keep the directory

    /media/lubuntu/casper-rw/upper/home
    

    but remove all other files and directories from

    /media/lubuntu/casper-rw/upper
    

    Your personal files and tweaks should be preserved, but you must reinstall the programs that you have installed.

  • or if necessary, remove all files and directories from the casper-rw partition and restart persistence by installing programs and tweaking the system.

• The partition that stores persistent overlay data is easily damaged, particularly if you remove the pendrive before it is unmounted, so please use the backup and restore tools described at

  mkusb/persistent#Backup_and_restore_of_persistent_overlay_data