[SRU] Fix crash caused by updating update-manager from inside itself

[errors.ubuntu.com bug bridge]

Impact
------

LP:1990450 introduced Ubuntu Pro updates and news to update-manager, but also a bug whereby updating update-manager itself while update-manager is running replaces its UI files with a version incompatible with the already running handle of update-manager, subsequently causing a crash when the latter references an widget existing only in the old UI file.

In other words, update-manager crashes if the user tries installing the new update-manager release from inside itself.

Even though updates would have been installed successfully at that point and subsequent runs of update-manager would not crash, the user is none the wiser and is most likely left worried about his resulting system state.

Test case
---------

1. Have the old version of Update Manager installed and the proposed version available in the Apt database, such that, in Jammy for example, 'apt install --dry-run --verbose-versions' would report

  update-manager (1:22.04.9 => 1:22.04.19)

2. Start update-manager from a terminal.

3. Make sure 'Software Updater' is selected in the list. We don't care about any other package for this test.

4. Click 'Install now'.

The installation must complete successfully and the view must be automatically recalculated. Verify that the application didn't crash (no tracebacks in the terminal window) and confirm with 'apt policy update-manager' that the new version was indeed installed.

To note
-------

The recalculated view will not include references to Ubuntu Pro (neither news pane nor Ubuntu Pro updates section), as it is still the old version of the program that is running.

Regression potential
--------------------

GTK is very finicky about its *.ui files; We must look out for other widgets failing to map or being relocated.

Original report
---------------

The Ubuntu Error Tracker has been receiving reports about a problem regarding update-manager. This problem was most recently seen with package version 1:22.04.17, the problem page at https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/7b4facc926a743e632733dcc290e7cd5623b6eb0 contains more details, including versions of packages affected, stacktrace or traceback, and individual crash reports.
If you do not have access to the Ubuntu Error Tracker and are a software developer, you can request it at http://forms.canonical.com/reports/.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Those reports got flagged by the SRU phasing as regression, they seem to represent the same issue and started with the refactoring done to add the news section it seems

https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/7b4facc926a743e632733dcc290e7cd5623b6eb0
https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/d7e8e1fa60363628b200378f5ca6fd60ca72d7c7
https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/de4a79fb91be2d239109f623b6eb7c99ddde6eb9

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

The reported error is

--->
AttributeError: 'UpdatesAvailable' object has no attribute 'expander_desc'
<---

A preliminary investigation leaves me bewildered, as neither in the
ubuntu/{jammy,focal} upstream checkouts nor in the packages themselves
(retrieved 20.04.10.18 and 22.04.17 with pull-lp-source update-manager
{focal,jammy}) is there any occurrence of expander_desc. That did exist
though in older versions of the package.

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

 > and started with the refactoring done to add the news section it seems

Those reports are dated all the way back to October, but the packages
weren't released to proposed until November and to updates until
December. Am I misreading it or could there be something wrong with the
Error page itself?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

> Those reports are dated all the way back to October, but the packages weren't released to proposed until November

I think the dates there are wrong, if you check https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/1990450/comments/61 for example, the 1:22.04.16 upload was accepted in proposed on October 6th

> That did exist though in older versions of the package.

Right, so the issue there is happening if update-manager is updated while the interface is loaded.

It's easy to reproduce with those steps
- start update-manager on a newly installer jammy system (1:22.04.10 was installed)
- go to a commandline and install the new update-manager
- in the update-manager interface, clicking on the settings button -> software-properties opens -> close software-properties

it makes update-manager try to reload part of the .ui but the file on disk changed and doesn't match the active binary anymore.
(it could be that simply installing the new update-manager by applying the updates from the GUI is enough to trigger the situation but it's a bit more difficult to test now since the phase was set to 0% so update-manager isn't going to include the package for upgrade)

Technically that isn't really a bug in the new version, another side effect of doing upgrades in a session while it's in use... unsure if there is any easy workaround we could use there.

The error reports state the bug impact the new version because they collect the installed version information at the time where the problem occurs.

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

Awesomely figured, thanks for the help!

 > it's a bit more difficult to test now since the phase was set to 0%
so update-manager isn't going to include the package for upgrade

I added the PPA:

   apt-add-repository ~nteodosio/ubuntu-pro

and then I can reproduce the problem. I select the Update Manager in the
list and install it in the interface, by the end of the process it
crashes right away (check attachment), so this would affect all users
updating Update Manager from Update Manager.

I'll see if I can contrive a simple workaround.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

One workaround I could think off would be to add a fake widget with the same name maybe in the .ui, unsure if that would be enough though or if it still would get confused reloading the UI...

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Closing mantic as wontfix since we decided to not SRU the pro changes there

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Hello errors.ubuntu.com, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into jammy-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:22.04.18 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-jammy to verification-done-jammy. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-jammy. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:24.04.3

---------------
update-manager (1:24.04.3) noble; urgency=medium

  * Add back removed widgets to UI file to fix crash when updating
    Upgrade Manager from inside itself (LP: #2045918).

 -- Nathan Pratta Teodosio <email address hidden> Fri, 08 Dec 2023 11:25:51 +0100

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

In Jammy, had update-manager 1:22.04.9 installed. Enabled proposed and ran update-manager, and selected only update-manager 1:22.04.18 in the list for upgrade. Clicked install now, the installation completed, update-manager recalculated and neither crash nor any side effect in the GUI happened.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:22.04.18

---------------
update-manager (1:22.04.18) jammy; urgency=medium

  * Add back removed widgets to UI file to fix crash when updating
    Upgrade Manager from inside itself (LP: #2045918).

 -- Nathan Pratta Teodosio <email address hidden> Fri, 08 Dec 2023 11:23:26 +0100

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for update-manager has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Hello errors.ubuntu.com, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into focal-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:20.04.10.19 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-focal to verification-done-focal. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-focal. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

There is also https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/ec5cc8f5d5bfc9644c0e9d9f5095e87f04bb4e4d regarding the same traceback.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Hello errors.ubuntu.com, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:18.04.11.22 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Hello errors.ubuntu.com, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:16.04.19 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-xenial to verification-done-xenial. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-xenial. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

Hello errors.ubuntu.com, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into focal-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:20.04.10.20 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-focal to verification-done-focal. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-focal. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

Hello errors.ubuntu.com, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:18.04.11.23 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

Hello errors.ubuntu.com, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:16.04.20 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-xenial to verification-done-xenial. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-xenial. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Ubuntu SRU Bot (ubuntu-sru-bot)]

All autopkgtests for the newly accepted update-manager (1:20.04.10.20) for focal have finished running.
The following regressions have been reported in tests triggered by the package:

ubuntu-release-upgrader/1:20.04.41 (armhf)

Please visit the excuses page listed below and investigate the failures, proceeding afterwards as per the StableReleaseUpdates policy regarding autopkgtest regressions [1].

https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/proposed-migration/focal/update_excuses.html#update-manager

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Autopkgtest_Regressions

Thank you!

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

In Bionic virtual machine, I had .13 in bionic-updates installed, started update-manager from a terminal, selected 'Software Updater' in the list and clicked 'Install now'.

The installation completed successfully and the view was automatically recalculated. The application didn't crash (no tracebacks in the terminal window) and 'apt policy update-manager' says that the installed version is .23.

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

In Xenial virtual machine, I had .17 in xenial-updates installed, started update-manager from a terminal, selected 'Software Updater' in the list and clicked 'Install now'.

The installation completed successfully and the view was automatically recalculated. The application didn't crash (no tracebacks in the terminal window) and 'apt policy update-manager' says that the installed version is .20.

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

In Focal virtual machine, I had .18 in focal-updates installed, started update-manager from a terminal, selected 'Software Updater' in the list and clicked 'Install now'.

The installation completed successfully and the view was automatically recalculated. The application didn't crash (no tracebacks in the terminal window) and 'apt policy update-manager' says that the installed version is .20.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:20.04.10.20

---------------
update-manager (1:20.04.10.20) focal; urgency=medium

  * d/control: Depend on ubuntu-advantage-tools >= 30~.
    Fixes edge case whereby the program crashes upon an incomplete
    response from ua security-status (LP: #2049785).
  * The New Release dialog should take precedence over a list of updates dialog
    if the latter would only show Ubuntu Pro updates in an unattached system.
    (LP: #2051115).

update-manager (1:20.04.10.19) focal; urgency=medium

  * Add back removed widgets to UI file to fix crash when updating
    Upgrade Manager from inside itself (LP: #2045918).

 -- Nathan Pratta Teodosio <email address hidden> Mon, 22 Jan 2024 21:32:17 +0100

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:18.04.11.23

---------------
update-manager (1:18.04.11.23) bionic; urgency=medium

  * d/control: Depend on ubuntu-advantage-tools >= 30~.
    Fixes edge case whereby the program crashes upon an incomplete
    response from ua security-status (LP: #2049785).
  * The New Release dialog should take precedence over a list of updates dialog
    if the latter would only show Ubuntu Pro updates in an unattached system.
    (LP: #2051115).

update-manager (1:18.04.11.22) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Add back removed widgets to UI file to fix crash when updating
    Upgrade Manager from inside itself (LP: #2045918).

update-manager (1:18.04.11.21) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Fix incorrect available version for Ubuntu Pro updates in unattached case
    (LP: #2043425).

update-manager (1:18.04.11.20) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Ubuntu Pro (LP: #1990450):
    - fix another linter error which was created while fixing a missing
      space in the previous upload...

update-manager (1:18.04.11.19) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Ubuntu Pro (LP: #1990450):
    - Address linter errors that cause autopkgtest to fail.

update-manager (1:18.04.11.18) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Ubuntu Pro (LP: #1990450):
    - Show Ubuntu Pro packages, whether the system is attached to Ubuntu Pro
      or not.
    - Replace Install now button by Enable Ubuntu Pro button when only Ubuntu
      Pro packages are available and the machine is not attached.
    - Fix checkbox and expander widget from overlapping.
    - Add News pane in a expander.
    - Replace notebook with Description and Changes tabs by a pane.

update-manager (1:18.04.11.17) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Fix Ubuntu Pro updates checkbox and expander widget from overlapping
    (LP: #1990450)

update-manager (1:18.04.11.16) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Update of the parsing for pro client changes (lp: #1990450)

update-manager (1:18.04.11.15) bionic; urgency=medium

  * Show pending Ubuntu pro packages (LP: #1990450)

update-manager (1:18.04.11.14) bionic; urgency=medium

  * tests/test_meta_release_core.py: switch a test from using lucid to bionic
    as precise was removed from the archive. (LP: #1929865)

 -- Nathan Pratta Teodosio <email address hidden> Mon, 22 Jan 2024 21:36:03 +0100

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:16.04.20

---------------
update-manager (1:16.04.20) xenial; urgency=medium

  * d/control: Depend on ubuntu-advantage-tools >= 30~.
    Fixes edge case whereby the program crashes upon an incomplete
    response from ua security-status (LP: #2049785).
  * The New Release dialog should take precedence over a list of updates dialog
    if the latter would only show Ubuntu Pro updates in an unattached system.
    (LP: #2051115).

update-manager (1:16.04.19) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Add back removed widgets to UI file to fix crash when updating
    Upgrade Manager from inside itself (LP: #2045918).

update-manager (1:16.04.18) xenial; urgency=medium

  * Implement the new Ubuntu Pro design (lp: #1990450).
    - Fuse the description and changes tabs into a single view.
    - Add button to attach to enable Ubuntu Pro if it is the only action
      available.
    - Ubuntu base -> System components.
    - Fix Ubuntu Pro item not being a parent group of its corresponding
      packages.
    - Fix incorrect available version for Ubuntu Pro updates in unattached case
      (LP: #2043425).

 -- Nathan Pratta Teodosio <email address hidden> Mon, 22 Jan 2024 21:39:36 +0100

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

Hello errors.ubuntu.com, or anyone else affected,

Accepted update-manager into xenial-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/1:16.04.21 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-xenial to verification-done-xenial. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-xenial. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Ubuntu SRU Bot (ubuntu-sru-bot)]

All autopkgtests for the newly accepted update-manager (1:16.04.21) for xenial have finished running.
The following regressions have been reported in tests triggered by the package:

update-notifier/blacklisted (arm64, armhf, ppc64el)

Please visit the excuses page listed below and investigate the failures, proceeding afterwards as per the StableReleaseUpdates policy regarding autopkgtest regressions [1].

https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/proposed-migration/xenial/update_excuses.html#update-manager

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Autopkgtest_Regressions

Thank you!

[Nathan Teodosio (nteodosio)]

In Xenial virtual machine, I had .17 in xenial-updates installed, started update-manager from a terminal, selected 'Software Updater' in the list and clicked 'Install now'.

The installation completed successfully and the view was automatically recalculated. The application didn't crash (no tracebacks in the terminal window) and 'apt policy update-manager' says that the installed version is .21.