[lug] restoring hosed gnome configuration?

[Bear Giles]

​Oh, I deleted the backup file once I knew what happened. The system seems
to be fine except for the inability to change my gnome settings.

That's one reason why I'm irked that it hasn't automatically fixed itself
either during use or during upgrade. Apps should be smart enough to
recognize when config files are missing or corrupted and recover with a
sane default.

I haven't had much luck looking at the other systems around here for
comparison since they're nearly all on 16.04. One laptop is 17.04 due to
problems with an upgraded app but it's still unity, not gnome.

On Sat, May 5, 2018 at 12:37 PM, <mad.scientist.at.large at tutanota.com>
wrote:

> The os has to be able to write files to run properly.  I'd suggest booting
> off of optical media, deleting at least some of the "backup files" that are
> clogging the drive then fsck (because the directories may be slightly hosed
> as well)  reboot and hope.
>
> The update likely made things worse and you may be somewhat hosed, but you
> should be able to get your' files back at least.  Temporarily adding
> another drive and putting an os on the "extra" drive might be a better way
> to go, especially since you don't have a file back up (if you have/get a
> spare drive i'd get the data, quick).  you should probably make that backup
> asap.  Root and the other partitions will need some space cleared and you
> might have trouble getting the partitions to even mount if they are still
> full to the brim.....
>
> mad.scientist.at.large (a good madscientist)
> --
> Read, Scream, Fight <https://www.eff.org>
>
>
>
> 5. May 2018 11:13 by bgiles at coyotesong.com:
>
>
> My backup directory wasn't mounted before an automatic monthly backup and
> it completely filled my hard disk. (my disk is a 512GB nvme - very fast and
> large enough for my needs but backups (obviously) need to be written to a
> different drive.)
>
> Since the backups are performed as root it completely filled the disk -
> none of the usual buffer.
>
> I didn't realize this happened before rebooting the system and lost some
> files that are automatically saved by apps upon closure. E.g., all of my
> chrome tabs. Mostly just an annoyance. But... somehow some gnome
> configuration files also got hosed. It runs but I've lost the ability to do
> things like set my background image. I've lost the ability to pin commonly
> used apps to the sidebar.
>
> I hoped bumping to 18.04 would fix it as the new packages were installed
> but no such luck.
>
> Any ideas how to fix this? Directories to check for existence and
> permissions, etc.?
>
> Thx
>
>
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