> Did you also update mesa around the same time?
For starters, thanks for moving my comment to the appropriate sub-forum. I will try to be better in my posts in the future.
I don't know what "mesa" is. (yeah, I spent some time in my preferred search engine, but i still do not understand the relevance of the question.)
My plan on this laptop is to run the Linux Mint Update Manager to keep the laptop up to date. Which I do, and have done. So, I am running 21.1 of Linux Mint.
To be honest, this is a secondary computing device for me.
Web access, email. That's basically all I expect from it, aside from not having to deal with Windows.
Having a functional MC is a bonus (and, based upon the MC that I know, a way huge bonus

).
But it is not essential here on this laptop.
All that aside, if y'all want to troubleshoot, let me know.
I'm willing to help in any way I can.
Or, if JR decides that Linux Mint is an obscure distribution, I'm OK with that also.
Thanks for your time and, apologies, for possibly wasting your time.