How to Downgrade or Repair a Non-Booting Clear Linux Install

After my recent difficulties with being unable to boot from my LUKS partition, I received help from this forum to assist me in downgrading my non-booting Clear Linux installation. I have documented the steps I took in the hope that they might also help others. Please let me know if any of the following is inaccurate especially with regards to non-encrypted partitions.

Create a Live USB with a recent version of Clear Linux

Boot into that Live USB

Connect your WiFi

Open the program ‘Disks’

Note where your ‘boot’ partition is and click on it. Make note of the Device location listed below. For example mine is listed as /dev/sda6. You may not have a separate boot partition, you might just have a ‘root’ partition. If that is the case, skip this step.

Note where your main root filesystem is located and click on it and note it’s Device location as well. If it is LUKS encrypted, click on it and click the Unlock button to unlock it. Enter your LUKS password when asked. Now a ‘root’ partition will be visible just below the LUKs partition. Note the Device location for this ‘root’ partition. It may be a very long string of characters.

Open a Terminal

Mount your ‘root’ filesystem to the directory /mnt

sudo mount <‘root’ partition location> /mnt

Mount your ‘boot’ filesystem to the directory /mnt/boot (skip if you don’t have one)

sudo mount <‘boot’ partition location> /mnt/boot

Now downgrade to the OS version you desire

sudo swupd repair -m <version #> -S /mnt/var/lib/swupd --force --path=/mnt

When completed, reboot your system.

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This is what I tryed yesterday ,downgrade and repair,but with no succes.

My computer did not boot today, the cursor just stood and blinked in the upper left corner.
I remembered that I had read something I was going to test. It was the following thread: How to Downgrade or Repair a Non-Booting Clear Linux Install so this one!
I followed the step by step instructions and to my luck it works again now !!! :slight_smile:

Thank you so much for this thread jaygambrel. You saved me many hours of work.

I did not downgrade, but repaired or upgraded to the latest version according to the ClearLinux download.

In other words, it might be good to have a usb with ClearLinux Live saved, and the link to your thread available.

Maybe it’s a good idea to lock it at the top.

Saw that boot partition was not mounted now after reboot. Is it OK?

And what can the problem with the laptop not booted? Error of the OS? Is this error common? Do I dare to continue with ClearLinux? I am a beginner and a retired, no good combination :slight_smile:

You use LUKS?Today all is ok (vers 32650)

Could you say what your system was doing that it required a downgrade. Also did you do this from a Live USB? Also this may not fix the problem if your video drivers are the issue. This will just repair the Clear Linux installation not any proprietary drivers that were installed.

Yes I use LUKS. There was a problem booting with LUKS after version 32600 and was resolved by 32650. See Unable to boot after update - flashing cursor only

Yes I use Luks version 1.0 as I have seen. Yes I used OS version 32650. And as far as I can tell all is ok. It booted as usual with asking for Luks password.

I use LUKS too and have only Intel GPU (HD 620),Yesterday I install fresh again and after upgrade( vers 32640) was unable to boot.And yes,I used CL live(USB) but for downgrade to 32620 I received some error from swupd repair …

I am very happy that I was able to help you. I am a new user to Clear Linux as well and am definitely not a Linux power user. I just typed those instructions to document what I did in the hopes it would help others. There was a problem with booting with LUKS for a few versions, that is now resolved. The Clear Linux team tests booting with LUKS but apparently there was an issue that was not picked up. It has been resolved and hopefully won’t occur again.

See Unable to boot after update - flashing cursor only

I am not an expert, but I don’t think the boot partition needs to be mounted once the system has finished booting and the root file system is mounted. I know mine is not either. Probably a good thing. Keeps guys like me from messing up my boot files inadvertently. You can always manually mount that partition using ‘Disks’ if you need to make any changes to them.

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That’s strange that it would give you an error. I think 32620 had the same boot error with LUKS anyways so likely would not have booted for you. I believe 32620 and 32640 were affected.

I haved 32620 and was all ok but after upgrade to 32640 cannot boot anymore.

You can also do a repair or downgrade directly from the command line if your system is able to boot without a Live USB. Just use:

sudo swupd repair -m <version #> --force

It must have been a different error than the one I was experiencing. I am glad 32650 is working for you.

Thanks,I used one time because was another issue and i make downgrade.Only issue what I have is that System-boot Menu cannot be enabled.I I’m happy now because whan you cannot boot is not fun,but I learned how to mount LUKS partition :slight_smile:

I was able to temporarily enable my boot menu by mounting my ‘boot’ partition using ‘Disks’ then I edited /loader/loader.conf (on the boot partition) and added:

timeout 10

I did this from a live USB to try and boot from a different kernel. The menu showed up and I was able to select a different kernel, but didn’t fix my problem unfortunately. This change will get overwritten with the next upgrade though.

Apparently pressing the space bar at the right time during boot will bring up the menu as well, but my fingers were not fast enough.

yes,i discover this yesterday(down arrow)

Where to turn off automatic updates? I get a little anxious after this.

the command to disable autoupdate is:

sudo swupd autoupdate --disable

Please remember to enable it ones this issue gone with

sudo swupd autoupdate --enable
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Thanks miguelinux.

More consequences?
Now, Tutanota does not boot.
Hope this resolves via a new update of ClearLinux or Tutanota?
Have not tested if more installed programs are affected.

Remember, now that you have this knowledge, you can roll back to any previous OS version you like. You can try out to see if a previous version works with the software you are using. This is the advantage of a stateless OS. It is not necessarily as easy with other distros and package managers, unless you have some way to save snapshots like rsync, timeshift, etc.

If it is the software itself that is not working in any version of the OS then try posting a new topic with some info.

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