Upgrade Failure, Ubuntu 18.10 to 19.04

[JOSEPH E CONNER]

When upgrading Ubuntu 18.10 to 19.04 the upgrade failed. Below is the content of a pop-up notice.

"Could not install 'install-info'
The upgrade will continue but the 'install-info' package may not be in a working state. Please consider submitting a bug report about it.

triggers looping, abandoned"

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[tburette (burettethomas)]

I have the same issue.

/var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log gives me :

2019-04-19 00:18:01,188 ERROR got an error from dpkg for pkg: 'install-info': 'triggers looping, abandoned'
2019-04-19 00:18:01,188 DEBUG running apport_pkgfailure() install-info: triggers looping, abandoned
2019-04-19 00:18:01,196 ERROR got an error from dpkg for pkg: 'install-info': 'triggers looping, abandoned'

/var/log/dist-upgrade/apt-term.log has :
Setting up update-manager-core (1:19.04.5) ...
Setting up language-pack-gnome-en-base (1:19.04+20190412) ...
Setting up update-notifier-common (3.192.18) ...
dpkg: cycle found while processing triggers:
 chain of packages whose triggers are or may be responsible:
  libgtk2.0-0:amd64 -> libc-bin
 packages' pending triggers which are or may be unresolvable:
  install-info: /usr/share/info
  sgml-base: /usr/share/xml: /usr/share/sgml: update-sgmlcatalog: /etc/sgml
  linux-image-5.0.0-13-generic: linux-update-5.0.0-13-generic
  libvlc-bin:amd64: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/vlc/plugins
  shared-mime-info: /usr/share/mime/packages
  dbus: /etc/dbus-1/system.d
  ca-certificates: update-ca-certificates
  systemd: /etc/init.d
  libc-bin: ldconfig
  libgtk2.0-0:amd64: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gtk-2.0/2.10.0/immodules
  dictionaries-common: update-default-ispell: update-default-wordlist: aspell-autobuildhash
  hicolor-icon-theme: /usr/share/icons/hicolor
  initramfs-tools: update-initramfs
  mime-support: /usr/share/applications: /usr/lib/mime/packages
dpkg: error processing package install-info (--configure):
 triggers looping, abandoned

[Ngan (ngan)]

I have the same problem and it said the upgrade fail. But after that it is still Ubuntu 19.04. Setting looks weird with a space. Text Editor stops all the time.

[JOSEPH E CONNER (joeconner2007)]

I have discovered that the desktop context menu no longer contains choices to alphabetize icons, nor to lock into the underlying grid.

I do not know if this is a result of this installation bug or not.

[Maken (saiyan32)]

I also encountered this bug

[Kósa Lajos (lajos-p)]

Same here on two computers. However the problem was caused with different packages: in one case it was the package menu, the other I can't remember any more, but definitely something else.

[Jon breysse (jon.breysse)]

I also encountered this problem also during the upgrade to 19.04. The computer has restarted successfully, but the theme was very bad.

[crt (crt-mori)]

I also have this exact error and not the one in the duplicate.

[Reinaldo Cabanita (rcabanita)]

I also had this problem, upgrading from Ubuntu 18.10 and from Kubuntu 18.10 to 19.04.

[alex (lembiewski)]

Got the same error during upgrade from 18.10 to 19.04:

2019-04-25 02:20:35,241 DEBUG plugins for condition 'StartUpgrade' are '[]'
2019-04-25 02:20:35,241 DEBUG plugins for condition 'discoStartUpgrade' are '[]'
2019-04-25 02:20:35,241 DEBUG plugins for condition 'from_cosmicStartUpgrade' are '[]'
2019-04-25 02:20:35,241 DEBUG quirks: running StartUpgrade
2019-04-25 02:20:35,241 DEBUG running Quirks.StartUpgrade
2019-04-25 02:20:35,241 DEBUG skipping 'README' (no '.')
2019-04-25 02:20:35,241 DEBUG killing update-notifier
2019-04-25 02:20:35,250 DEBUG killing kblueplugd kbluetooth4
2019-04-25 02:20:35,260 DEBUG killing gnome-screensaver
2019-04-25 02:20:35,269 DEBUG setup poke timer for the screensaver
2019-04-25 02:20:35,274 DEBUG apt btrfs snapshots supported: False
2019-04-25 02:20:35,275 INFO cache.commit()
2019-04-25 02:36:30,588 WARNING no activity on terminal for 300 seconds (Installed libnss3 (amd64))
2019-04-25 04:04:25,303 ERROR got an error from dpkg for pkg: 'install-info': 'triggers looping, abandoned'
2019-04-25 04:04:25,304 DEBUG running apport_pkgfailure() install-info: triggers looping, abandoned
2019-04-25 04:04:25,314 ERROR got an error from dpkg for pkg: 'install-info': 'triggers looping, abandoned'
2019-04-25 04:05:48,575 ERROR Exception during pm.DoInstall()
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/DistUpgrade/DistUpgradeView.py", line 220, in run
    res = pm.do_install(self.writefd)
apt_pkg.Error: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
2019-04-25 08:20:20,880 WARNING no activity on terminal for 300 seconds (Configuring language-pack-gnome-en-base (amd64))
2019-04-25 08:20:20,891 ERROR SystemError from cache.commit(): installArchives() failed
2019-04-25 08:20:20,892 ERROR found exception: 'E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)'
2019-04-25 08:20:32,134 DEBUG Running PostInstallScript: './xorg_fix_proprietary.py'
2019-04-25 08:20:32,139 ERROR got error from PostInstallScript ./xorg_fix_proprietary.py (g-exec-error-quark: Failed to execute child process “./xorg_fix_proprietary.py” (No such file or directory) (8))

[AntonK (im-fixing-dist-upgrade-1904)]

I got the same message from the bug description.

During the dist-upgrade, I noticed quite a few GdkPixbuf-WARNING errors logged, e.g.:

(frontend:20874): GdkPixbuf-WARNING **: 23:46:47.169: Cannot open pixbuf loader module file '/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gdk-pixbuf-2.0/2.10.0/loaders.cache': No such file or directory

I found a way to fix my upgraded system, and it might help you as well. See the instructions below.

-----------------------

# first, check if the following command produces any output
sudo egrep "WARNING.*pixbuf" /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt-term.log

# if the command above produces any output, then the commands below might fix your broken 19.04 installation.

# I'm not sure if these three commands were necessary to fix the system, but they should do no damage:
sudo apt install libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev
sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/install-info.postinst /var/lib/dpkg/info/install-info.postinst.bad
sudo apt-get install --reinstall install-info

# and this will fix the packages that were not installed properly because of the install-info error:
# explanation:
# select only the lines containing 'Setting up' or 'WARNING.*pixbuf',
# then select only the lines containing 'pixbuf' together with the 'Setting up'
# line directly preceding it (with -B1), and discard other 'Setting up' lines
# then select only those 'Setting up' lines
# in other words, select all 'Setting up' lines that resulted in that WARNING message.
# then, select the package name (third word) from those lines with awk,
# and reinstall those packages.
for X in `sudo less /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt-term.log | egrep "Setting up|WARNING.*pixbuf" | grep -B1 pixbuf | grep Setting | awk '{print $3}'`; do echo REINSTALLING: $X; sudo sudo apt-get --reinstall install $X; done

[Bob Dooby (squid12345678)]

Same error here after upgrading from 18.04 LTS to 18.10 and then to 19.04.

[lith (minilith)]

Is the fix suggested in #11 something other people, who are more deeply involved in this subject, would recommend? Does reinstalling the packages change the status of a package from automatically to manually installed?

Are there any official recommendations for how to fix an upgrade that went wrong to an unknown extent?

[Spyderdyne (spyderdyne)]

I had it this morning. NetPlan broke my virsh network bridges, so I attempted to upgrade past it. Couldnt catch much of the error, and was running remote SSH, but its the same install-info item. Tried cleaning up the dpkg items and installing a specific kernel with headers (4.18.x) and on reboot it never came back.

update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.0.0-13-generic
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.12-1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.29-0ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0:amd64 (2.38.1+dfsg-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 install-info
Exception during pm.DoInstall(): E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

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(recurring failure loop, no remediation options provided.)

I have to drive to the lab and fix this afternoon so I may have access to logs to share.