On 2021-12-26 9:16 a.m., Robert Moskowitz wrote: > I was working away this morning and got a failure with LIbreOffice. > Was not actually using it, but then the dialog popped up without the > content being filled out,  Just whatever was on the screen when it > opened... > > I could not get OpenOffice to restart.  It did create a abrt and > tried to upload a bug report, but that failed. > > I tried to open my Fedora mail folder to see if anything was being > discussed, but Thuderbird would not show content of the folder. > > Oh, oh time.  Time to reboot.  But first do a 'dnf update' and got a > new LibreOffice. > > Reboot failed.  Got dropped in emergency mode.  Turned out my /home > partition was not mounted. > > I have not had to deal with this in YEARS and I am away from home so > no old system to fall back on.  In fact no other computers here. > Internet via my cellphone. > > I remembered the disk recovery program started with 'f', fortunately > not too many such and found fsck which I ran on /dev/sda5 > > Lots of errors I let it fix and as you many guess I am now up and > running. > > LibreOffice recovered the docs I had open. > Thunderbird is opening folders. > I guess other things are working, > > but 2 items. > > LibreOffice uploaded a dump, but I did not create a bug report. > Should I (I did get a new LibreOffice in all this).  If so, how do I > find what was uploaded to link to a bug report? > > How do I figure out what fsck fixed and what may now be a broken > important file?  It could just be tmp junk for all I know. > > Anyway big scare here with only a non-working computer and no one to > talk to for help, as I have not been in this sort of recovery mode > for years.  I was not looking forward to getting home tonight and > THEN start recoverying. > > Backup first order of business tomorrow morning. I think the first order of business is to run the hardware diagnostics.  You may have failing memory, oxidized connectors, or any of a host of other possible issues.  Reseating the memory and the disk and power connectors  will generally fix mismatched connector plating oxidation issues for quite a while.  While you're in there, blow out the processor cooling fins under the fan.  Its probably mostly plugged by now.  If not, find your local used computer outlet and just replace it for (say) $150, or get a new one for (say) $1200. Then, if your hardware (other than the disk) is good, backup what you need.  Almost everything will be on your home directory, and may be corrupt, but its a good starting place.  Get a big $30 thumbdrive or an external disk to do the backup.  If you don't have one, buy one, as you will need it for future backups. Then, assuming that you have not found the real problem, it is time to run the extended (multi-hour) SMART tests on the drive. You will probably have to buy a new disk.  It is now probably progressively failing in ways that you have not anticipated.  This may be the time to put in an SSD instead of spinning rust, as they are only 3x the price, and the speedup is impressive. Then, do a complete fresh install on the new disk.  Unless you are a maintenance dev locked into ancient libs for some reason, upgrade to the latest version of your distro.  If you are not using btrfs, its now the default in Fedora, and checks for corruption on every read. You may find like I did, that your motherboard has become unstable in ways not caught by the diagnostics and causing continuing issues, so you may need that backup again... While configuring your new install, reconfig Thunderbird to keep the email on the upstream host instead of the default download. With fast networks today, it makes little sense to download every email. -- John Mellor _______________________________________________ users mailing list -- users(a)lists.fedoraproject.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave(a)lists.fedoraproject.org Fedora Code of Conduct: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/project/code-of-conduct/ List Guidelines: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines List Archives: https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/users@lists.fedoraproject.org Do not reply to spam on the list, report it: https://pagure.io/fedora-infrastructure