Can not update the system. Get an error "Unable to mark upgrades."

[Lothar]

When updating in the UI (Muon) I get an error dialog saying

Unable to Mark Upgrades
Not all packages could be marked for upgrade.
...

Updating on the command line fails, too:

sudo aptitude safe-upgrade
Resolving dependencies...
Unable to resolve dependencies for the upgrade: no solution found.
Unable to safely resolve dependencies, try running with --full-resolver.

$ sudo aptitude safe-upgrade --full-resolver
The following packages will be upgraded:
  linux-generic linux-headers-generic{b} linux-image-generic{b}
3 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 5,252 B/6,960 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 linux-headers-generic : Depends: linux-headers-3.2.0-27-generic which is a virtual package.
 linux-image-generic : Depends: linux-image-3.2.0-27-generic which is a virtual package.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: muon-updater 1.3.1-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-26.41-generic 3.2.19
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-26-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu11
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Jul 7 09:38:47 2012
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/muon-updater
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101008)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: muon
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-05-07 (61 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Lothar (lothar-tradescape)]

Todays update fixed it :-) Thanks!

[Wesley Schwengle (wesleys)]

I still have this issue on several boxes:

$ lsb_release -a ; apt-cache policy aptitude ; aptitude -s safe-upgrade ; aptitude -s -y full-upgrade
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise

aptitude:
  Installed: 0.6.6-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.6.6-1ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.6.6-1ubuntu1 0
        990 http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
Resolving dependencies...
Unable to resolve dependencies for the upgrade: no solution found.
Unable to safely resolve dependencies, try running with --full-resolver.

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libcrystalhd3{a}
The following packages will be upgraded:
  gir1.2-gudev-1.0 initscripts libgudev-1.0-0 libgudev-1.0-0:i386 libldap-2.4-2 libldap-2.4-2:i386 libnautilus-extension1a libudev0 libudev0:i386 libvlc5 libvlccore5
  nautilus-data resolvconf sysv-rc sysvinit-utils udev vlc vlc-data vlc-nox vlc-plugin-notify vlc-plugin-pulse
21 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 14.9 MB of archives. After unpacking 2,729 kB will be used.
Would download/install/remove packages.

[Daniel Hartwig (wigs)]

On 3 August 2012 17:07, Wesley Schwengle <email address hidden> wrote:
> ** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #663134
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=663134
>
> ** Also affects: aptitude (Debian) via
> http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=663134

How is the Debian report related? It refers to a version skew
preventing the safe-resolver from finding a solution. Your output log
does not demonstrate any such version skew.

[Daniel Hartwig (wigs)]

Lothar (lothar-tradescape) wrote on 2012-07-08:
> Todays update fixed it :-) Thanks!

The original issue appears to be packages unavailable in the archive. These are typically transient in nature and there is nothing that apt can do about them anyway.

[Daniel Hartwig (wigs)]

Wesley, your issue is unrelated to the original reported here (though the symptoms are similar). It _may_ be a bug and so require it's own report. As your report contains details only of aptitude's behaviour, please note that safe-upgrade is not guaranteed to find any solution and it is *not* a bug simply because it fails and you must use full-upgrade. However, if apt-get upgrade finds an upgrade path given the same situation then this has grounds to be looked at.

If you experience the problem in other programs also (such as muon) then it is not likely to be a bug in either, but rather to do with some combination of your configuration, the archive, and the particular relationships between the packages involved.