I have been using Linux Mint 21.1 Beta since it was released.

Everything ran very smoothly and I certainly had no problems or complaints.

However, the production release of 21.1 came out today. According the the Mint blog, all I had to do was run the Update Manager. That sounded easy enough? But the Update Manager failed to work. It repeatedly hung up on me even after a reboot.

I tried an update to the manager via the terminal. That didn’t work. I tried a few other suggestions that I discovered on the Web. Still no go. I decided the simplest solution was to reinstall 21.1 from the new ISO. I downloaded it and stuck it on a USB key.

Before booting into the key I went to backup my software selection. The Backup Tool didn’t work either. It just didn’t list any software. I resigned myself to a system reload. But before I started I thought I’d test Software Manager. That seemed to work so as a last resort (just for the devilment) I installed Gnome Update Manager. That worked, though it was a different program from the normal! It suggested a load of updates but I just selected Update Manager and Backup Tool. That worked.

In my Administration Menu I now had Software Updater and Software Manager. I tried the latter again.

It worked perfectly this time, as did Backup Tool. I applied all the updates.

It took somewhat less time than a total reload!