attempting to upgrade using CD only, tries to download files from internet (reason: broken apt cache before the upgrade)

[eekrazyk]

Binary package hint: update-manager

Attempted to upgrade from 8.04 to 8.10 using the alternate CD because the internet upgrade keeps failing connection failures. Selected upgrade from cdrom, but it still tries to download from the web. Fails to fetch files:

Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux/linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic_2.6.27-11.27_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/restricted/n/nvidia-graphics-drivers-173/nvidia-glx-173_173.14.12-1-0ubuntu5.1_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/k/kdebase-runtime/kde-icons-oxygen_4.1.4-0ubuntu1~intrepid1.1_all.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openoffice.org/openoffice.org-core_2.4.1-11ubuntu2.1_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openoffice.org/openoffice.org-common_2.4.1-11ubuntu2.1_all.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/s/sun-java6/sun-java6-bin_6-10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/k/kdenetwork/kopete_4.1.4-0ubuntu1~intrepid1_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/p/python-kde3/python-kde3_3.16.1-1ubuntu2_i386.deb Connection failed

Snippets from my /var/log/dist-upgrades/main.log

2009-04-01 17:44:53,718 DEBUG Have broken pkgs, trying to fix them
2009-04-01 17:44:54,997 DEBUG needServerMode(): run in 'desktop' mode, (because of pkg 'kubuntu-desktop')
2009-04-01 17:44:54,998 DEBUG checkViewDepends()
2009-04-01 17:45:14,394 DEBUG useNetwork: 'False' (selected by user)
2009-04-01 17:45:14,394 DEBUG running doUpdate() (showErrors=False)
2009-04-01 17:45:14,394 DEBUG doUpdate() will not use the network because self.useNetwork==false
2009-04-01 17:45:14,395 DEBUG openCache()
2009-04-01 17:45:15,389 DEBUG /openCache()
2009-04-01 17:45:15,389 DEBUG doPostInitialUpdate
2009-04-01 17:45:15,389 DEBUG quirks: running intrepidPostInitialUpdate
2009-04-01 17:45:15,390 DEBUG running intrepidPostInitialUpdate
......
2009-04-01 18:00:21,849 ERROR IOError in cache.commit(): 'Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux/linux-image-2.6.27-11-generic_2.6.27-11.27_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/restricted/n/nvidia-graphics-drivers-173/nvidia-glx-173_173.14.12-1-0ubuntu5.1_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/k/kdebase-runtime/kde-icons-oxygen_4.1.4-0ubuntu1~intrepid1.1_all.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openoffice.org/openoffice.org-core_2.4.1-11ubuntu2.1_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/o/openoffice.org/openoffice.org-common_2.4.1-11ubuntu2.1_all.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/s/sun-java6/sun-java6-bin_6-10-0ubuntu2_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/k/kdenetwork/kopete_4.1.4-0ubuntu1~intrepid1_i386.deb Connection failed
Failed to fetch http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/p/python-kde3/python-kde3_3.16.1-1ubuntu2_i386.deb Connection failed
........

[Santana (rigosantana3-gmx)]

The report has enough information for dev.
Question seems to be why cd is downloading files if it is an alternate install.

[John M (jwmwalrus)]

By just doing a Google search, it seems that this bug has been around for a couple of years now.

Shouldn't the installer just offer to remove the packages that, if not updated, would conflict with those coming from the alternate CD ---maybe offering to create an install list with those, that the user can import into Synaptic later, once an internet connection becomes available.

Right now, this install option seems useful only if you have never installed anything outside the main or restricted components ---which seems highly unlikely, since main and restricted contain only about 10-25% of the packages available to debian/ubuntu (e.g., gufw is not in main).

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

This seems to be caused by:

2009-04-01 17:44:53,718 DEBUG Have broken pkgs, trying to fix them

the problem is most likely triggered by them.

If this is not the case, then please add a upgrade log and I can debug the failure. But for cdrom
only upgrades it should not touch the net (other than in this corner case).

[Paul Ebermann (paul-ebermann)]

I just tried to upgrade from a downloaded alternate CD image, selected "No" in the question about using the network, but the installer still wants to connect to the Internet to download nearly two gigabytes.

There was no message about "Have broken pkgs" around in my case.

Here is someone with the same problem: http://askubuntu.com/q/38180/11138