Score:1

Gnome Shell broken after the latest update

pw flag

After the latest update I can't access the GUI on Ubuntu 22.04. When the system finished the update and restarted I'm met with a black terminal screen asking for my login and password. I've tried sudo apt update and upgrade and I'm met with:

gnome-shell: depends: gnome-shell-common (= 42.5-0ubuntu1) but 42.9-0ubuntu2 is to be installed

Recommends: gdm3 (>= 3.10.0.1-3~) but won't be installed Recommends: ubuntu-session but won't be installed or gnome-session but won't be installed

E: impossible to fix errors, but you kept (hold) broken packages.

EDIT2: This solved my problem. https://askubuntu.com/a/1051125/1711715

EDIT: Sudo apt update && upgrade output:

Hit:1 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy InRelease
Hit:2 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates InRelease
Hit:3 https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu jammy InRelease
Get:4 http://br.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-backports InRelease [100kb]
Hit:5 https://dl.google.com/Linux/chrome/Deb stable InRelease
Hit:6 http://security.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu jammy-security InRelease
Hit:7 https://ppa.launchpadcontent.net/lutris-team/lutris/Ubuntu jammy InRelease
Fetching 108kb in 1s (85,2 kb/s)
Reading package list... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
2 can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
The following packages will be kept at the current version:
 initramfs-tools initramfs-tools-core
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to removed and 2 not upgraded.


user535733 avatar
cn flag
Please [edit your question](https://askubuntu.com/posts/1477377/edit) to show us the complete output of `sudo apt update` and of `sudo apt upgrade`. The details in that output often offer important troubleshooting clues.
auroravenue  avatar
pw flag
Sure! I'll just have to loosely translate it since my system is in another language.
user535733 avatar
cn flag
Do not bother translating anything. The exact string matters. See https://askubuntu.com/questions/264283/ for how to output in english.
auroravenue  avatar
pw flag
Done! Would it be easier to just install Ubuntu again from a live image? Would doing it so keep my files intact?
Talaat Etman avatar
gt flag
try this command `sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3` if you see the package configuration screen choose ok and in second screen choose gdm3 and press enter
user535733 avatar
cn flag
I see the `apt update` output. I do not see any `apt upgrade` output.
Score:0
bq flag

Just had this same error in a laptop, 7 days after the original poster, and fixed it.

Let me explain in detail, both the analysis and the steps I took. Maybe someone can figure the causes better!

Context and root cause

For context, this is an old laptop I hadn't used it for a few months. I applied all upgrades, and after the reboot I was left in a shell.

Tried startx but it didn't not work, I was getting a white message about something being broken with gnome.

The obvious fix was to just reinstall ubuntu-gnome-desktop:

sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-gnome-desktop

It failed, because a conflict in gnome-shell-common version:

gnome-shell: depends: gnome-shell-common (= 42.5-0ubuntu1) but 42.9-0ubuntu2 is to be installed

This is weird! I tried to install that version, but it did not exist in the repositories:

apt install gnome-shell-common=42.5\*

Fixing the local repos

So I got suspicious of the repositories. I was using the Spanish repositories (ES), so changed those to the standard ones:

  • by opening /etc/apt/sources.list
  • and replacing the domain:
# from this:
deb http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy main restricted
# to this:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy main restricted

After this, I run apt update and apt upgrade. And, surprise! it had many, many packages to update.

Success!

With this new available packages, again I reinstalled ubuntu-gnome-desktop, and this time it worked as expected (no error message on gnome-shell

sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-gnome-desktop

It worked as expected, gnome started, It's fixed, I'm happy!

FYI, I have the gnome-shell-common at the newest version (42.9-0ubuntu2). No idea why it was asking for an old one, I guess because of a deprecated ES repo?

Suspicions

I'm suspicious, but have no proof, that this could be related:

  • I've just updated from the snap store app, showed some errors
  • I had gnome-tweaks and similar packages

Conclusions

    1. This means that the ES locale repo was broken, right? Is it up-to-date?
    1. The original poster (auroravenue) has the system with the BR locale, maybe that repo was also wrong?
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