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I initially wanted to upgrade my Ubuntu from 18.04 straight to 20.04 via the CLI using this guide, which was very straightforward but I ended up first upgrading to 19.10 with a plan to upgrade to 20.04 later on.

During the installation, I was prompted several times to decide if I want some of the files I configured to be replaced by newer files being installed, to which most I opted in keeping them as they were and some I did replace with the newly installed files. Other than that, during the entire installation process there were no errors or any other visible exceptions.

After rebooting, I got to the login screen but after a second the screen switched to a black console screen with a blinking underscore, which stayed until I rebooted again. This would persist until I boot in recovery mode from the GRUB boot menu advanced options. After logging in with my user, I was greeted with the "Oh no! Something has gone wrong" window with the option to log out.

Also, I was able to solve the above issue with the blinking screen by switching gdm with lightdm, afterward I had no issue with the gnome log in screen.

I was searching around to see if I can find the solution, but it seems that sadly nothing helped in this case. I did attempt the following:

  1. Perform a sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt update, as well as sudo apt-get upgrade. Interestingly enough it just runs couple of lines and doesn't do much else, when usually it does have a rather lengthy process to it.

  2. Perform sudo dpkg --configure -a, which does nothing (skips straight to the next console line).

  3. Remove the gnome and gnome-shell using apt-get remove gnome-session gnome gnome-shell, running another apt-get autoremove and then reinstalling gnome again using sudo apt install ubuntu-desktop.
  4. Creating a new user using sudo adduser username && sudo usermod -aG sudo username (assuming it's something to do with my personal gnome-shell tweaks or extensions), but I got the same result with a new user as well.

My initial instinct is that the issue is with the config file(s) I left or overwritten during the upgrade process, but the worst part is that I don't know how to even start debugging this or find what is causing this error. if anyone solved this issue before or able to assist in debugging the issue I would greatly appreciate it.

Edit: I would also like to point that while logged in the gnome with "Oh no!" state, if I press the super key I will be prompted the workspaces screen with the gnome fully visible and interactive, but leaving the workspace overview mode I will return to the "Oh no!" grey screen.

elitu
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  • It would be less problematic to download and install fresh Ubuntu 20.04 – JoKeR May 01 '20 at 08:48
  • Of course, I keep this as my last resort option. But if it would be possible to keep my current setup with the settings, extensions and software already installed on the system, that would be even better in my opinion. – elitu May 01 '20 at 09:22
  • I've located the text in gnome-session and created this issue about the screen being useless https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-session/-/issues/62 If you have suggestions on how to improve this screen please add suggestions there and vote up if you agree. – int_ua May 09 '20 at 06:42

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