Opera wont start after distro-upgrade

[davidlee2]

davidlee2 last edited by

Recent EOL changes in Linux Kubuntu24.10 forced me to downgrade to 24.04.03 (LTS) I was unable to move forward to kubuntu25.10 because intrafms was not compatible with host. The linux ubuntu "distro-upgrade" flag forced to reinstall Opera desktop, but to my surprise the opera GUI would not launch. Using the cmdlet I see error message "User profile is locked by a session on another computer to prevent corruption" I was befuddled about how to unlock it since no instruction were printed for removing the lock. This is how I unlocked my profile.

1. Logged into old system and removed attached snaps.

   sudo snap remove opera

2. Logged in with Brave_browser to my opera account

https://auth.opera,com/accounts/edit-profile/sessions (cr)

3. scrolled down to connected sessions, and remove all sessions.

• maybe mobile sessions were not interfering but drop all sessions with my user name.

4. Restart Kubuntu24.04.3 (LTS) and launch opera-desktop

   • opera launches 3-sessions. #Is that normal?

5. Import bookmarks because sync has a problem connecting now.

Any advice someone can give on a system upgrade/downgrade while using opera? yes I have cleared cache.

[rohankh]

rohankh @davidlee2 last edited by

Clean, polished version

Issue:
After recent EOL changes in Kubuntu 24.10, I downgraded to Kubuntu 24.04.3 LTS. I couldn’t upgrade to 25.10 because intrafms was not compatible with my host system.
During the downgrade, Ubuntu’s distro-upgrade process forced Opera to reinstall — but Opera would not launch afterward.

Error message:

User profile is locked by a session on another computer to prevent corruption

There were no clear instructions on how to unlock the profile, so here’s what worked for me:

Fix Steps

Logged into my old system and removed Opera snaps:

sudo snap remove opera

Logged into my Opera account using Brave browser

Went to Settings → Connected Devices / Sessions

Removed all active sessions (desktop & mobile just to be safe)

Rebooted into Kubuntu 24.04.3 LTS

Launched Opera Desktop

Opera launched successfully — it created 3 sessions automatically (not sure if that’s normal behavior?).

Note: Sync still failed initially, so I imported bookmarks manually.

Questions for the community

Is there a better way to handle Opera profiles when downgrading/major upgrading Linux?

Is Opera creating 3 sessions expected behavior after reset?

Any recommended backup/sync strategy for Opera before Linux distro changes?

Cache was already cleared before testing.

Thanks in advance for any advice — hope this helps others too.