I just updated my Ubuntu 13.04 system to kernel 3.8.0-29 and I had no problem with this. My suspicion is that you're experiencing filesystem damage. This is common on systems that dual-boot with Windows 8 because of a Windows 8 feature called "fast startup." This feature essentially turns the shutdown operation into a suspend-to-disk operation. This works fine on a single-boot computer, but when the computer dual-boots with another OS, the result is dangerous filesystem problems, at least on any filesystem that's shared between OSes (including the EFI System Partition [ESP]). To fix this, boot to Windows and disable fast startup. Note that this feature is not the same as the fast boot option in your firmware; disabling this feature in the firmware does not disable it in Windows 8.
If you disable fast startup and the problem persists, then you could try doing a filesystem check on your ESP, as in dosfsck /dev/sda1. (The device file in Linux might be different, though. Use parted or GParted to find the FAT partition with a "boot flag" set, or use gdisk to find the partition with a type code of EF00.)
If the problem persists even after you disable fast boot and fix the filesystem, please try the following diagnostics:
grep efi /etc/fstab
sudo blkid
Compare the results -- the /etc/fstab file defines where partitions are mounted, and so searching it for efi should produce details on how your system is mounting the ESP. For instance, on my system, it shows the following:
$ grep efi /etc/fstab
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=FFB3-46B6 /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 1
The blkid command produces information on all your computer's filesystems. You want to compare what it shows for your ESP (usually /dev/sda1, /dev/sda2, or /dev/sda3) to what's in /etc/fstab. For instance:
$ sudo blkid
/dev/sda1: SEC_TYPE="msdos" LABEL="ESP" UUID="FFB3-46B6" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="Fred" UUID="421258c1-e9b1-4b1b-9dd7-60b82e75f8c3" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda3: UUID="9108d33b-855d-49ba-8b9e-90f981a597ea" TYPE="swap"
In this case, /dev/sda1 is the ESP -- it's a FAT (TYPE="vfat") filesystem, and its serial number matches what's in /etc/fstab (UUID="FFB3-46B6"), so all is in order. A mismatch of the serial numbers or some other detail might cause the problem you're encountering. If you need more help, please edit your post with this information and the exact error message you're seeing.
Best Answer
The error message you are probably getting is
This likely happens after a release upgrade
To fix it, press Ctrl+Alt+F1 on the login screen and login with your username and password and type these commands
It should probably fix it. The error is most likely caused due to lack of space
If the above doesn't work, you can try chmodding /tmp to 0777.(source)