Problem with Grub menu after upgrade

I am using mint 17.3 mate 64bit - since I upgraded from an earlier version of mint the recovery options in the Grub menu stopped working.

For example if I use it to check for broken packages it just hangs even after an hour nothing has happened.

I am also running the same version of mint on my laptop (clean install) and noticed that the Grub menu is different when it is opened it has an option of Advanced Options which takes you to the recovery and other links options.

Thus I suspect that when my desk top was upgraded that the revised version of Grub was not installed or configured properly.

Is there anyway short of a clean install to upgrade the Grub loader…?

Thanks in advance.

Have you tried

sudo update-grub

?

Though I doubt if GRUB is the problem

No this makes no difference.

I rebooted and selected the recovery option - it then presents me with the recovery menu - I house the option to check and fix broken packages.

it gets as far as /dev/sda1: clean, then there are two sets of numbers one for the number of files and one for the number of blocks.

Then it gets stuck I left it for 15 mins and it was still on the same line with no HDD activity.

What’s the output from:

dpkg -l | grep grub

userone@Office2 ~ $ dpkg -l | grep grub
ii grub-common 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.12 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader (common files)
ii grub-gfxpayload-lists 0.6 amd64 GRUB gfxpayload blacklist
ii grub-pc 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.12 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (PC/BIOS version)
ii grub-pc-bin 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.12 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (PC/BIOS binaries)
ii grub2-common 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.12 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader (common files for version 2)
ii grub2-theme-mint 1.1.0 all Grub2 theme for Linux Mint
userone@Office2 ~ $

Try reinstalling that lot:-

sudo apt-get install --reinstall grub-common grub-gfxpayload-lists grub-pc grub-pc-bin grub2-common grub2-theme-mint

then updating grub:

sudo update-grub

OK will test it on next system boot…

No improvement - I tried the option dpkg repair broken packages

It got stuck at -

fsck from util-linux 2,20.1
/dev/sda1: clean, 497676/30007296 files, 28576762/120011776 blocks

no activity for 15 mins and no HDD activity.

Have you actually got any broken packages ?

Have you checked if synaptic can fix them ?


Have you tried running a file system check by either running:

sudo touch /forcefsck

then rebooting

Or booting to a LiveCD/LiveUSB and (without doing anything that might mount the partition) running:

sudo fsck /dev/sda1

Option one gave this result.

userone@Office2 ~ $ sudo touch /forcefsck
[sudo] password for userone:
userone@Office2 ~ $

Whilst option two

Gave the following result:

fsck from util-linux 2,20.1
/dev/sda1: clean, 497676/30007296 files, 28576762/120011776 blocks
Then returning to the flashing curse.

I have tried running the package manager and it reports no packages are broken.

what’s the output from:

dpkg -l | grep grub

userone@Office2 ~ $ dpkg -l | grep grub
ii grub-common 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.12 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader (common files)
ii grub-gfxpayload-lists 0.6 amd64 GRUB gfxpayload blacklist
ii grub-pc 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.12 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (PC/BIOS version)
ii grub-pc-bin 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.12 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader, version 2 (PC/BIOS binaries)
ii grub2-common 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.12 amd64 GRand Unified Bootloader (common files for version 2)
ii grub2-theme-mint 1.1.0 all Grub2 theme for Linux Mint
userone@Office2 ~ $

Note grub is in red.

Would it be helpful to see the difference in the results between the clean install on my laptop and my desktop - upgrade.

2.02~beta2-[b]9ubuntu1.12[/b]

IIRC it’s that that’s the problem … I’m pretty sure the BRUB versions should be from the Mint repos and have filenames that end with versions like:-

2.02~beta2-36ubuntu3.9[b]+linuxmint1[/b]

so you appear to have somehow got the upstream Ubuntu versions.

What version of Mint did you upgrade to, so I can check ?

and what’s the contents of

xed /etc/apt/sources.list

and the output from:

ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d

and

cat /etc/apt/preferences

I upgraded to mint 17.3 mate 64bit from the previous LTS version.

userone@Office2 ~ $ xed /etc/apt/sources.list
No command ‘xed’ found, did you mean:
Command ‘xwd’ from package ‘x11-apps’ (main)
Command ‘xd’ from package ‘xd’ (universe)
Command ‘med’ from package ‘ncl-ncarg’ (universe)
Command ‘ed’ from package ‘ed’ (main)
Command ‘xfd’ from package ‘x11-utils’ (main)
Command ‘red’ from package ‘ed’ (main)
Command ‘xxd’ from package ‘vim-common’ (main)
Command ‘xjed’ from package ‘xjed’ (universe)
Command ‘xev’ from package ‘x11-utils’ (main)
Command ‘xsd’ from package ‘mono-devel’ (main)
Command ‘sed’ from package ‘sed’ (main)
Command ‘jed’ from package ‘jed’ (universe)
Command ‘xen’ from package ‘xen-utils-common’ (universe)
Command ‘xep’ from package ‘pvm-examples’ (universe)
xed: command not found
userone@Office2 ~ $

userone@Office2 ~ $ ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d
additional-repositories.list libreoffice-libreoffice-5-1-trusty.list
atareao-atareao-trusty.list libreoffice-ppa-trusty.list
docky-core-stable-trusty.list official-package-repositories.list
eid.list official-source-repositories.list
getdeb.list skype-stable.list
google-chrome.list steam.list
jitsi-stable.list stebbins-handbrake-releases-trusty.list
userone@Office2 ~ $

userone@Office2 ~ $ cat /etc/apt/preferences
cat: /etc/apt/preferences: No such file or directory
userone@Office2 ~ $

Sorry as it’s the MATE edition, try

pluma /etc/apt/sources.list

instead.

deb cdrom:[Linux Mint 17 Qiana - Release amd64 20140624]/ trusty contrib main non-free

deb http://download.ebz.epson.net/dsc/op/stable/debian/ lsb3.2 main

Damnit, looks like Mint store their repository configs somewhere else ::slight_smile:

What’s the contents of

pluma /etc/apt/sources.list.d/additional-repositories.list

and

pluma /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list

deb http://quozl.netrek.org/pptp/pptpconfig ./
deb http://packages.domain.com/ trusty main

deb http://linuxmintpkg.efemef.ovh rosa main upstream import

deb http://extra.linuxmint.com rosa main

deb http://gaosu.rave.org/ubuntu trusty main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://gaosu.rave.org/ubuntu trusty-updates main restricted universe multiverse

deb Index of /ubuntu trusty-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb Index of /ubuntu trusty partner

Does running:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall grub2-theme-mint

make any difference to the GRUB theme ?

[EDIT]

I have the feeling I might be concentrating on the wrong thing here … the “Advanced Options” GRUB submenu is perfectly normal.

It makes no difference.

I never get to see “Advanced Options” GRUB submenu.

It goes directly to the main GRUB menu.

which gives me 6 options.