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I recently attempted an upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04. During the process I got stuck whilst comparing 2 versions of a config file.

Foolishly I used ctrl+c and unknowingly aborted the upgrade. The system was no longer booting.

I was then advised to do a manual upgrade from a bootable USB using the 'Something Else' option and just installing over the half upgraded stuff, which I did. However ALL my installed apps like Rails etc are no longer accessible or working although all of the code is there.

I had taken a Timeshift snapshot immediately before starting the upgrade. Those snapshots are still on a different disk partition. However Timeshift itself isn't working.

If I reinstall Timeshift would I be able to revert back to 16.04 using the snapshot? If I can, is there anything I ought to be vary of?

Thanks for any advice offered.

Purvez
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  • My understanding is that if you boot to a Ubuntu Live, you can install Timeshift there, and restore your previous snapshot. – heynnema Oct 03 '20 at 14:03
  • @hynennema thanks. Unfortunately I have already upgraded to 18.04. So the main question is whether I can move BACK to a previous release rather than just to previous versions of the SAME release. – Purvez Oct 03 '20 at 16:16
  • I was talking about restoring a prior snapshot from 16.04. You said that you couldn't boot to 18.04 after an aborted upgrade. Will it work? I don't know. If not, you'll just have to reinstall Ubuntu... either version. – heynnema Oct 03 '20 at 16:29
  • @heynnema I did install 18.04 using the 'Something Else' option from a bootable USB. Hence my question about whether I can go back to a previous release with Timeshift. – Purvez Oct 04 '20 at 08:49
  • My suggestion was to try it. You can't do much more damage than what has already been done. – heynnema Oct 04 '20 at 13:54

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Following @heynnema's suggestion to try the restore I installed Timeshift on the new 18.04 system and during initial configuration of Timeshift I pointed the location to where the previous snapshots were. This offered me those snapshots and I restored from the one that I had manually created immediately before starting the upgrade.

The restore started properly and I could see all the files being restored inside a Terminal session. However half way through the screen went blank and I could not log back in again. The disk drive light was still working so I left it alone and after about 1 hour the system rebooted and .....I've got my OLD 16.04 configuration back!!!

I had been reluctant to try the restore because in one of the comments on this article :

https://itsfoss.com/backup-restore-linux-timeshift/

someone had said that they had tried to restore back from 20.04 to 18.04 but had been left with an unsuccessful and unbootable system.

I hope my experience will be of use to someone in the future and I would like to thank @heynnema for urging me to try the restore.

I would also like to Thank Tony George and all the other contributors to Timeshift for such an amazing and life saving piece of software.

Purvez
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