"Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can't recover, please contact a system administrator" on Kali Linux – How I Fixed This Problem

Posted on May 21, 2025 by David Kisseh

It's been a while since I did an upgrade on my Kali Linux system, so I decided to run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. I was prompted to restart some services, which I did. After that, I restarted my laptop to finalize the changes, but I was met with the dreaded "Oh no! Something has gone wrong" error.

After the upgrade, I was prompted to restart some services, which I did. I then restarted my laptop to finalize the changes, only to run into the dreaded:

"Oh no! Something has gone wrong. A problem has occurred and the system can't recover, please contact a system administrator."

It's quite frustrating that there is little to no detailed information on how to solve this issue online, as many Linux communities assume users are already experts. After 4 hours of research and troubleshooting, I managed to fix the issue on my machine. Here's how I did it—hopefully, it helps you too!

Steps to Fix the Problem:

1. Ensure you have an active Wi-Fi network or mobile hotspot:
   • Make sure the network name is simple (avoid special characters).
   • Turn on the Wi-Fi or hotspot before continuing.
2. Boot into Recovery Mode:

   Reboot your laptop into recovery mode. You’ll be asked for your root password. If you're unsure how to boot into recovery or reset the root password, search for guides specific to Kali or any debian distro.

3. Start the Network Manager:

   sudo systemctl start NetworkManager

   Verify it's running:

   sudo systemctl status NetworkManager

4. Find Available Wi-Fi Networks:

   nmcli dev wifi

   Identify the network you want to connect to.

5. Connect to the Wi-Fi Network:

   nmcli dev wifi connect <SSID> password <password>

6. Verify the Network Connection:

   nmcli dev status

7. Test Internet Connectivity:

   ping -c 4 google.com

   If packets are being transmitted and received, your connection is working.

8. Fix the System Issues:

   Run these commands one by one:

   sudo apt update --fix-missing
   sudo dpkg --configure -a
   sudo apt clean
   sudo apt update --fix-missing
   sudo apt install -f
   sudo dpkg --configure -a
   sudo apt upgrade
   sudo apt dist-upgrade

   Note: I personally didn’t run sudo apt dist-upgrade, but it’s recommended that you do.

9. Restart Services (if prompted):

   If you're prompted to restart services, use the spacebar to select them all, navigate with arrow keys, and press Enter.

10. Reboot:

    sudo systemctl reboot

    Hopefully, after the reboot, your system will be back to normal!