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A strange event during software update from inside "Discover" caused wiping of my custom profile and many personal files, both in my home folder and a separate partition.

I would like to try to restore my computer's custom interface/ format using a snapshot from "Timeshift" and/or from a "config" file. Can someone advise me?

I also wonder if it is possible to somehow restore the file directory of a partition that was not reformatted but had most of the files wiped - as though they were in the trash and then the command to empty the trash was given and then terminated.

I have recovered all I could by running Ubuntu off a USB and recovering from Home and the partition onto an external hard disk - a huge tangle of unnamed files all dated from the moment of recovery. Naturally I have backups, but I have done enough work since my last backup to want to simply recover the file directory if possible!

sb_release -a No LSB modules are available. Distributor ID: Ubuntu Description: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS Release: 22.04

A few days ago, I noticed a notification "Software updates available." I opened Discover and clicked to go ahead with the updates. I was working in Dolphin with my files and noticed that the computer got very laggy. I asked the computer to shut down, and it didn't and did not close Dolphin. I saw in Dolphin that files were disappearing and free space was increasing on the drive. As I held down the power button to force shutdown, I spotted a popup saying that I was out of space (0 GB remaining) in the home folder. This shouldn't be right as I'd freed up at least 2 GB earlier in the week and hadn't been doing much.

When I rebooted:

  • the interface was reset to the default - all my customization for font, background, clicking on file to select rather than open etc, is gone. (Oddly, except for the custom image that shows up with the prompt to enter my password upon reboot, and the little icon associated with my username on that screen.)
  • All the extra software I had installed through the years is still installed.
  • my entire home folder (ext4) was reset. I keep almost no personal files on it, but I had a few unnecessary video files that were deleted. My Dropbox is synced to it, and luckily was untouched.
  • the separate partition that I use for my personal files (NTFS formatted) had been almost entirely emptied. The music folder is still visible with a portion of my files in it.
  • The computer is also now totally silent - music won't play from any program. Pavucontrol shows a visual indication that it thinks it is playing, but no sound from internal or external speakers. I think it was like this years ago when I first bought the laptop and installed Ubuntu, but can't remember how I resolved it. I hope this might be fixed automatically when (if!) I restore my custom setup, either through my Timeshift backup (still intact in the home folder) or a config file (I recovered many and don't know which to use or how to do this.)

(About a week ago I installed a few apps (now deleted) from Discover for viewing "What's App" on my desktop instead of within browser. I opened and shut Shotwell, a program for photos that I don't usually use. Otherwise, I've only been using Firefox, Spotify, and other regular programs and have installed nothing new.)

user311397
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    The log in /var/log/apt/history.log* for the day in question, if examined, can give details about the updates that were done that day. The system log in /var/log/syslog* for that day could also be instructive. – Organic Marble Jan 21 '23 at 02:23
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    Do you have separate /home partition? Post lsblk -f and cat /etc/fstab If /home is not mounted, it creates a new default /home, so it looks like entire /home with settings & files it gone. But if separate partition, it just may need fsck, so it can be correctly mounted. https://askubuntu.com/questions/642504/ubuntu-14-04-is-not-booting-normaly-after-a-manual-hard-boot/642789#642789 – oldfred Jan 21 '23 at 03:36
  • It won't perform fsck. When I reboot in recovery mode and select fsck, it returns:

    /lib/recovery-mode/recovery-menu: line 80: /etc/default/rcS: No such file or directory fsck from util-linux 2.37.2 /dev/nvme0n1p6 is mounted. e2fsck: Cannot continue, aborting. Finished, please press ENTER/

     – user311397 Jan 25 '23 at 01:26
  • I can't figure out how to show the outputs of the lsblk command... there is a character limit and I can't seem to post photos. There's a horrible amount of /snap stuff, and: ├─nvme0n1p1 │ vfat FAT32 SYSTEM 26BF-35AD 190.6M 26% /boot/efi I'm not sure what that is. And, nvme0n1p6 ext4 1.0 3326d25e-2387-4728-a1ec-4419904c3db6 36.6G 64% /var/snap/firefox/common/host-hunspell

    ...as well as my 3 NSFR partitions that I do recognize: Windows, Windows backup, and my poor mostly-deleted personal partition.

     – user311397 Jan 25 '23 at 03:39
  • :~$ cat /etc/fstab

    /etc/fstab: static file system information.

    Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a device; this may

    be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices that works even if

    disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).

    UUID=26BF-35AD /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 2 UUID=3326d25e-2387-4728-a1ec-4419904c3db6 / ext4 defaults 0 1

    (con't in next comment)

     – user311397 Jan 25 '23 at 03:40
  • (cat /etc/fstab output, continued:)

    This isn't necessary; the NTFS partition will not be able to be mounted in r/w mode

    if Windows shut down with hibernation active.

    #LABEL="Miscellany" /media/carola/Miscellany ntfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=0,group_id=0,default_permissions,allow_other 0 2

     – user311397 Jan 25 '23 at 03:40
  • I'm not sure what to do - perhaps I should just reinstall Ubuntu from scratch? I seldom use Windows on this system, anyways. I don't like the look of not being able to run fsck. But I'm not sure if that's the smart option and I'm not sure it would fix the problem - perhaps I'd need to reformat the hard disk first, or something? What a strange thing to happen. – user311397 Jan 25 '23 at 03:45

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