Corrupt 12.04 automatic update

[Colin Law]

On 9 May 2012 22:00, Joe Bissett <jbissett at hot-peppers.com> wrote:
> Hi Colin,
>
>
> On 5/9/2012 7:17 AM, Colin Law wrote:
>>
>> If you are able to open a terminal then do
>> sudo apt-get update&&   sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
>>
>> which will bring everything up to date, which may or may not help.
>
>
> Well, thanks to you, it's progress, but not perfection. :-) :-)
>
> Doing the above improved my situation, but I still have a very unstable
> machine.  Various errors which do not necessarily repeat themselves.
>
> Something knocked out my internet connection through my router, but I fixed
> that.  That was when I saw an error message flash by containing the word
> Daemon.  On my last try I was able to open FireFox and look at e-mail.
>
> The drop down menu sometimes say there are updates, and sometimes it says it
> is up to date.  In either case, I am at least able to open the update
> manager, which always says I have 109 updates waiting.  Sometimes it gives a
> size of 21.8 MB, and the last time it said 1 MB.
>
> The same old System program problem detected error message keeps popping up
> and shutting down whatever I'm trying to do.  But I am still unable to
> follow the prompts and Report Problem.
>
> Sometimes the GUI is knocked out, with the screen showing lines of text
> which appear to be status, rather than code.  Sometimes the text starts with
> a line that is right justified, stating that it is Checking battery status.
>  Strange, since this is a Dell desktop.
>
> So... my "newbie" analysis say we fixed a few things, but there still appear
> to be serious problems rendering the machine unusable for normal activity.
>
> I've tried to determine some repeatability in the errors, but aside from the
> System program problem detected error, there does not seem to be a regular
> error pattern.
>
> So, if you have any ideas based on this random information, I await your
> counsel.

Are you able to logon as another user or as the Guest user?  If you
have set it for automatic logon then you will have to logout first.
If so do you see the same problems there?  If it works ok then it
something to do with the user's setup rather than a system problem.

If you do see the same problems then I don't know what to suggest
other than a re-install unless someone else can suggest anything.

If you do go for a re-install then download the image first and burn
it to a CD or USB stick as described on the download page.  Then boot
from that select Try Ubuntu to make sure that is ok before
re-installing.  Also backup everything that is necessary before
re-installing.  It should be possible to re-install and keep your home
folder if you want to, ask if you want to do this but don't know how
(this does not mean it is ok to not bother with the backup).

Colin