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I have been running Ubuntu 14.04 for three years now (on a laptop with a Windows 7 partition). It would occasionally freeze but no major problems, until a few weeks ago when it crashed and could only be booted through the boot menu. Then nothing seemed to be working right, so I upgraded to Ubuntu 16.04 hoping it would fix the problems.

It works better now, but there are still lots of strange issues that keep popping up. I've tried solving them individually using posts here, but more keep appearing, leading me to believe there is something wrong at a much deeper level. I haven't been able to find a solution on these forums, so I figured I'd describe some of the issues, and hopefully a user here has experienced something similar, and can point me in the right direction.

  • First my 4G modem wasn't being autorun when plugged in. I had to use modeswitch to get the computer to notice it.
  • My wifi would sometimes simply not connect, and the wifi icon would repeatedly flicker
  • I used to be able to switch keyboard languages with Alt+Shift, but now it's stuck on one language, and even if I click the drop down and try to change between them, or remove them from the list, nothing happens.

  • Trying to make changes in my root directory I get the message:

    here-document: Read-only file system
bash: cannot create temp file for here-document: Read-only file system

I have a feeling this last point is probably a big clue. It seems that my root is read-only. I've read that ubuntu switches to read-only when it detects an error, which might have happened after the crash. But I'm nervous switching it to read-write could cause more errors, and I'm not even sure this is truly the problem. Any ideas?

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  • the redonly mount is what is keeping you from making changes. This sounds like possible drive failure. Boot from a LiveCD or USB drive. and run fsck and a SMART diagnotics on the drive.
    – ravery
    Nov 30, 2017 at 0:46
  • Thanks, I will try that over the weekend and let you know what happens.
    – zeebo
    Nov 30, 2017 at 8:18
  • I ran fsck directly from the error screen that appeared at startup. It seemed to fix the problem, but about a week later, while watching a youtube video, the computer froze again, and then the problems all started to reappear (system went read-only). I guess I will try running fsck off a USB drive, or completely wiping my ubuntu and doing a clean reinstall on that partition.
    – zeebo
    Dec 8, 2017 at 7:19
  • did you run the SMART diagnostics? it sounds like a failing drive.
    – ravery
    Dec 8, 2017 at 7:21
  • Thanks for the suggestion. Just did it now, and did the 'extended self-test'. Everything seems okay, but there are three things marked 'pre-fail'. Read Error Rate is at 38/100 while threshold is 51. I'm guessing this means it's time to get a new drive.
    – zeebo
    Dec 9, 2017 at 19:32

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