Issue with Nautilus (graphical corruption) after upgrading software

Support and Help
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My Ubuntu 24.04.3lts’ “Software Updater” has been disabled as it kept corrupting my nautilus with cascading corruption from that as well (ie anything opening a ‘files’ type window for ‘save as, open, download to, etc.’), but “Software & Updates” updates is used only to manually update firefox, nothing else - more here at: Ubuntu software updater corrupting my 24.04! - Linux Beginners / Newbie - Linux Forum

Not sure why updater kept doing this - first around the first of the year in Jan 2026 (installed b/u image to ‘fix’), then seemed to be fine for a couple of months when again around May the attack happened again. After that (installed b/u image to ‘fix’, again) locked myself with the 6.8.0-86 kernel and disabled “Software Updater” by unclicking all ‘sources’ so it never comes up again… then installed Fedora 43 on another partition and have been using it w/o these Ubuntu issues…

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Welcome to Ubuntu Discourse :slight_smile:

Your post was moved to its own topic because 1. you posted in a very old topic and 2. it is always better to start your own topic to get the best possible help from the volunteer users here.

Thanks

2 Likes
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You know what you are doing. I do not. I am trying to understand. I think that you are taking snapshots of the operating system and then when things do not work as they should you restore the snapshot of the operating system and things are back to what they were before.

This would explain why you are on Ubuntu 24.04.3 and Linux 6.8.0-86 kernel. And I am on Ubuntu 24.04.4 and Linux 6.17.0-40 kernel.

By not updating you are not receiving updates to the operating system, including Linux kernel updates.

You are blaming Software Updater because it brings in the updates. Does this problem happen if you update using the terminal? If it does then it is not Software Updater to blame.

The problem could be with a component of the desktop environment or a video driver. I suggest you start again and describe what is happening. What you are seeing. I certainly do not understand what you mean by “corrupting.”

Regards

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Closing - The OP says that they are no longer using Ubuntu. So there is nothing to support.

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Ubuntu Support Template

Ubuntu Version: 24.04

Desktop Environment (if applicable): Wayland

Problem Description:
Made post at Rename - “Software Updater” and “Software & Updates” - Project Discussion / Desktop - Ubuntu Community Hub), it got moved, then closed (alleged I’m not using ubuntu anymore - incorrect! … and got door slammed on me) so I could not respond to correct the allegation:

My Ubuntu 24.04lts’ “Software Updater” has been disabled as it kept corrupting my nautilus with cascading corruption from that as well (ie anything opening a ‘files’ type window for ‘save as, open, download to, etc.’), but “Software & Updates” updates is used only to manually update firefox, nothing else - more here at: Ubuntu software updater corrupting my 24.04! - Linux Beginners / Newbie - Linux Forum

Not sure why updater keeps doing this - first around the first of the year in Jan 2026 and struggling on AskUbuntu for help on why nautilus got corrupted, so installed b/u image to ‘fix’, then seemed to be fine for a couple of months when again around May the attack happened again. After that (installed b/u image to ‘fix’, again) locked myself with the 6.8.0-86 kernel and disabled “Software Updater” by unclicking all ‘sources’ so it never comes up again… then installed Fedora 43 on another partition and have been using it w/o these Ubuntu issues… but still using Ubuntu (which is why I still manually update its firefox) for my ‘work’ (website publishing via filezilla, video editing handbrake, photo editing imagej, PlayOnLinux gaming and EchoLink, etc.), but for simple browsing I use my Fedora partition to restore from hibernation. Also use my WIN10 machine w/ESET for secure stuff like banking

All this started suddenly (did not know at the time what caused it, and comment/answer posters kept running me into obscure rabbit-holes) when noticed my file manager - nautilus - began to be messed up: https://forum.linuxconfig.org/t/need-help-with-terrible-file-manager-type-glitch/8766

Thought I could reinstall ubuntu to fix nautilus, but 24.04 no longer supports reinstall w/o overwrite (https://forum.linuxconfig.org/t/re-install-of-the-operating-system-but-do-not-format-and-just-overwrite/8774/3)… dead end rabbit hole. Also looked at uninstalling nautilus and reinstalling but that is impossible…

Went thru many attempts at help on AskUbuntu, posts now deleted after they went astray, so figured to just forget finding out why it got messed up and install the backup G4L lzop image - which is when I discovered it got restored and nautilus was fine, but first update just corrupted it again! Thought it got fixed with the ‘partial uprade’, and it did for a few months (one update killed my hibernate button for some reason), then suddenly nautilus messed up after this great big weird update, re-install image to get back to a working nautilus (and got hibernate button back), and then got corrupted after first update - even the partial upgrade didn’t fix it this time - making my choice to just stop Software Updater and just use Software’s Updates instead. I even tried unchecking everything except conical - and still got corrupted… would like to get the software updater working w/o attacking my system, but how? My Ubuntu 18.04 machine doesn’t do any updates anymore - not supported - and it’s fine and I still use it occasionally - figure OK to just let 24.04 get off updates… it’s got everything on it I need and it’s all working, so… but not sure if updater ‘broken’, or there’s some screwy setting doing all this…

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You wrote a lot of text above without giving us a single clue about the issue, how about you write a proper description of the problem you see so we can help you, “my nautilus is corrupted” is pretty much the equivalent of “foo doesn’t work”. Without a better problem description it will be impossible to help you …

Try to describe the steps you do to reproduce the problem (like: I click on “foo”, then “bar” happens while I think “baz” should have happened) and try to omit any unrelated info.

If you are referring to any visual corruption, show us screenshots or photos.

2 Likes
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Hopefully offline…

Standard Support for Ubuntu 18.04 ended ~3 years ago.

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I was going to reply to your other topic but found it closed.

I wanted to confirm that you were taking snapshots of the operating system and then restoring the operating system. I think that you have confirmed that in this topic.

My suggestion would be to restore the operating system then use the terminal commands to update/upgrade.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Does the “corruption” still happen? If it does, then the problem is not Software Updater but something else. If the “corruotion” still happens then we may have confirmed that Software Updater is the problem.

This problem is preventing you from updating the operating system. If, I remember your other topic correctly, you are on Ubuntu 24.04.3 with a Linux 6.8.0 kernel. While I am on Ubuntu 24.04.4 with Linux 7.0.0-28 kernel.

Moving on to Ubuntu 24.04.4 and kernel 7.0.0-28 may solve the problem. Is there any reason why you want to remain on the Linux 6.8.0 kernel?

Regards

1 Like
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Reopened. OP says they are using Ubuntu.
Merged two topics.

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Nautilus (files) had a problem now fixed: Bug #2160437 “nautilus crashes on startup: NULL-pointer deref in...” : Bugs : nautilus package : Ubuntu

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go to open ‘files’ (ie nautilus) and it opens, blinks on and off a few times, crashes or locks-up forcing closing if fortunate - freezes everything requiring cold boot otherwise. go to save a download and ‘files’ type window opens and locks up or crashes firefox, go to save pic editing and when ‘files’ type window opens it locks up editor, etc. goto https://forum.linuxconfig.org/t/need-help-with-terrible-file-manager-type-glitch/8766 for more. Also, opening settings freezes desktop, and opening software & updates does same thing. ya know, cascading corruption.

YET, I can open terminal and move, copy, delete, etc files w/o issue (or using sudo) so not permission thing. Can open nautilus using '“LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 nautilus” in terminal and nautilus window comes up and is normal - no freeze/blink off-on/crash - I noticed I can rename a file, but try to copy it, and the freeze/blink off-on/crash happens as the window pops up (with read only message at its bottom) for where to copy it to…

Just look at the links provided for info - don’t need to re-hash it all here again…

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6.8.0-85 is very stable - everything works with it - later kernels keep breaking things… see examples at: https://forum.linuxconfig.org/t/why-does-restoring-from-hibernation-goes-to-login-screen-not-lockscreen/8690

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Not same problem - nautilus actually comes up - no error messages - as long as you let it come up and do nothing else it will sit there, but try to click on anything and BANG ~ blink, blink, etc. - besides, all that technical stuff on that link looks a lot like the rabbit-holes AskUbuntu kept sending me to no avail… and it is all way over my head!

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Will take time - will have to do image of current perfetly working system so I can restore it if the corruption comes back. Hesitant to do this w/o backup first as my system has been corrupted so many times on update/upgrade and such a pain to have to restore image… and how long can I trust software updater not to start the corruption again - thought last time it happened back in Jan and worked for a couple of months the problem was gone, but happened again.. very wary of software updater these days… got a bad taste in my mouth from using it…

ALSO, with all the items disabled (all check boxes cleared) in Software updater, will it not have anywhere to go to update?

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please start nautilus from terminal and post messages here.

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Do these same issues occur if you boot an older kernel than the one currently active?

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Are you using Wayland or Xorg?

If Wayland, this info may be relevant?

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Nothing wrong with using the 6.8 kernel but why not use the latest 6.8.0-135? If you started with an original install was 24.04.1 or earlier being on the 6.8x is expected. The current kernel I’m on from an original 24.04 install is the above and have no issues at all.

And in this linked article the first thing that sticks out is grub-customizer,that could be an issue in its own right if you have that installed.

1 Like
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I will mention something that you may know but others may not know.

Software Updater will remove older Linux kernels when it brings in new Linux kernels. So, if you want to keep that Linux 6.8.0-85 kernel do not use Software Updater. Use the terminal to update/upgrade.

There is another way to prevent a kernel from being removed. I do not know that way. Some others may suggest it. It may look like a rabbit hole.

Are you familiar with Ubuntu Friendly recovery? Supposing the problem is not Software Updater but a Linux kernel or a video driver.

At the Grub menu we can select Advanced Options for Ubuntu and we see a list of kernels. You can select the 6.8.0-85.

There will be kernels listed with recovery mode. Select one of them and we load to the Recovery menu. Among other things we can select Resume and the desktop will load using an open source video driver. This is useful if the problem turns out to be a proprietary video driver. We can disable it. Or, change to another.

Eliminate what is not the problem. Software Updater YES? NO? Kernel YES? NO? Driver YES? NO?

Regards

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Exactly but I suspect the OP and others are barking at the wrong tree.

This feels like a problem with some drive. Such behavior of file managers is typically triggered by a corrupt filesystem somewhere.

1 Like