I'm trying to find out if it is Gnome updates causing the update.

I've used Gnome on Arch (CachyOS, Manjaro) and openSUSE. I would think the same issue would be cross distro.

Maybe Gnome is the issue? I'll try another desktop interface to test that.

Now even if I remove Opera, reboot, reinstall, reboot - it still won't boot.

I've use Opera for decades. And don't want to switch if I don't have to.