package ubuntu-standard 1.267 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

[Tijn Boissevain]

Just upgraded from an up to date 11.10 to 12.04 using regular update manager

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: ubuntu-standard 1.267
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-16.29-generic 3.0.20
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-16-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun May 6 17:40:16 2012
ErrorMessage: ErrorMessage: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
SourcePackage: ubuntu-meta
Title: package ubuntu-standard 1.267 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-05-06 (0 days ago)

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Setting up memtest86+ (4.20-1.1ubuntu1) ...^M
/usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig: 35: /etc/default/grub: Syntax error: EOF in backquote substitution^M
dpkg: error processing memtest86+ (--configure):^M
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2^M

There is a syntax error in your /etc/default/grub file which is causing packages that use /etc/default/grub to fail to install. You'll need to manually resolve this issue.

[Tijn Boissevain (tijn-boissevain)]

That's it!

I did not ever edit or even open /etc/default/grub but did now and i found a missing double-quote in the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" only by comparing it to an other machine. In /etc/default I also found a file called grub.ucf-old and the line there said GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=" splash quiet" The upgrade-script of 12.04 LTS must have garbled it.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

What does ls -lh say about when /etc/default/grub.ucf-old was made? I'm curious to track down when this became broken. Also if you can look in the folder /var/log/dist-upgrade/ for a folder dated around the same time as grub.ucf-old the log files in that folder may help. Thanks in advance.

[Tijn Boissevain (tijn-boissevain)]

I looked again and found that etc/default/grub.ucf-old was made 10-may-2011. So i searched /var/log/dist-upgrade but found no file around that date. Searched further and only found two /var/log/gdm/:0-greeter.log files.

I did however find an etc/default/grub~ (7-march-2012) and did a search for that date. I found /var/log/boot-sav/log/2012-03-07__21h41boot-repair57

Hopefully this is of any help, although the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="" in etc/default/grub did the trick for me and solved all my problems :-)

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Okay, it seems like boot-repair may have done the wrong thing here.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

I'm going to close this since it is so old now and hasn't been reproduced. If you can run grub-repair and reproduce the corrupt /etc/default/grub again, please provide more details ( specifically, the /etc/default/grub before and after, as well as the output of the bootinfo script from https://sourceforge.net/projects/bootinfoscript/ ), then you should report it to the boot-repair folks.