After reading through the thread you linked I think I have a guess at what happened
- The update ran as expected up to the point it reached the kernel update
- At this point, it succeeded in moving the kernel to .old but failed to install the new version of the kernel
- The update process locked up at this point, and upon rebooting, there was no longer any kernel to boot with
I managed to install a kernel using the manjaro live CD and chroot but I think the install is still good and scuffed. I can reach the command line but the graphical environment fails to load, and frankly trying to diagnose X problems is a bit over my head. I tried starting the desktop environment using startxfce4 but it just fails after about a minute. I could get the exact error but not at the moment.
I don’t think I’m experiencing the exact problem that was linked there. I think what tipped me off that it was something I did was the following post [root tip] Update Manjaro the smart way
I could be wrong though. Unfortunately I think the smoking gun is long gone now. I tried to dd my disk for later inspection before getting into it but I guess it failed? It’s just one of those days I guess. Can’t say I didn’t make mistakes here. I guess it’s a cautionary tale, now.