System shut down while updating, now it won't get past grub

Support
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Aight so the context is, I updated my laptop while unplugged when I had about 35% battery. While the thing was updating, it suddenly jumped to 0% so I quickly ran to change it (about 1-2 minutes) but when I plugged the laptop, the power was on but the screen was black so I assume it automatically hybernated. After waiting 30 minutes to see if it would come back, I gave up and pressed the power button for 5 seconds to power it off for good.

As expected, something did go wrong, because when I started the system again, after selecting Manjaro in grub, the screen would get stuck. I figured I could fix it with a live usb so I searched how to do that and I found a post with similar conditions (system-broken-during-update-process-now-cant-boot/31877/4) followed commands from the solution.

When I tried to resume the update process, it returned:

 :: Starting full system upgrade...
 there is nothing to do

Wait what? I thought the update process got interrupted… but i followed the next commands with:

[manjaro /]# mhwd-kernel -i linux54
:: Synchronizing package databases...
 core                                                                                169.2 KiB  1078 KiB/s 00:00 [###################################################################] 100%
 extra                                                                              2018.9 KiB  8.35 MiB/s 00:00 [###################################################################] 100%
 community                                                                             6.2 MiB  19.7 MiB/s 00:00 [###################################################################] 100%
 multilib                                                                            193.0 KiB  5.71 MiB/s 00:00 [###################################################################] 100%
error: no targets specified (use -h for help)

Weird, but that didnt stop me from doing the final command just in case: “update-grub”.

Yeah, that actually made things worse, because now I cant even select Manjaro (nor my Windows partition) in grub since the only option I can see is “UEFI Firmware Settings”, that will kick me back to laptop boot.

Please I need some help if someone here knows how could I fix this mess. Though, worst case scenario is getting back some files with the live usb, then reinstalling.

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You mentioned that you tried to fix it with a live USB. What did you try. If you have made a Timeshift snapshot, you can simply restore that using a live USB session. That could be the simplest and quickest way.

Do you have a separate home partition ? If yes, then you can reinstall the OS, and retain your home partition without formatting it. That way you will at least not lose your data.

Another option - install a different OS from live USB (just a temporary install on a newly created partition). During this install process, GRUB will get overwritten to the EFI boot and you should hopefully have a properly working bootloader. Once that is done, just delete the new partition and grant the free space to Manjaro.

Hope this helps. All the best.

3

What I would do:

1.Chroot on the broken install: [How To] Save your Manjaro installation when it breaks

  1. Update grub: GRUB/Restore the GRUB Bootloader - Manjaro.

Probably grub did not find your kernels. Not sure why did it happen so maybe check them before updating,

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Maybe I didn’t make it clear, but I manjaro-chroot’ed to try update the system. Anyways, I followed the grub guide and I made sure there were no errors this time, but the result was the same (only “firmware” option in grub), so I’m going to assume something’s up with the kernel. I’ll now try to find out how to re-install it.

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So mhwd-kernel says that i have linux54 installed, which is weird because grub cant find it. When I try to install a new kernel, it will always return that no target has been specified even though I did type it.

[manjaro /]# mhwd-kernel -i linux59
:: Synchronizing package databases...
core                                                                                169.2 KiB   445 KiB/s 00:00 [###################################################################] 100%
extra                                                                              2018.9 KiB  2.38 MiB/s 00:01 [###################################################################] 100%
 community                                                                             6.2 MiB  4.85 MiB/s 00:01 [###################################################################] 100%
 multilib                                                                            193.0 KiB  0.00   B/s 00:00 [###################################################################] 100%
error: no targets specified (use -h for help)
[manjaro /]# mhwd-kernel -li       
Currently running: 5.8.11-1-MANJARO (linux58)
The following kernels are installed in your system:
   * linux54
[manjaro /]# mhwd-kernel -l 
available kernels:
   * linux414
   * linux419
   * linux44
   * linux49
   * linux54
   * linux57
   * linux58
   * linux59
   * linux54-rt
   * linux56-rt
   * linux59-rt
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Just wanted to say in case someone finds this searching for something, that after trying to make it work several times, I just gave up and reinstalled everything.

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