I think the underlying problem is my system hardware changed (from physical to virtual). 23.04 is booting fine on the new virtual hardware but /dev/disk/by-id/ no longer exists. When I go to upgrade to 23.10 it reinstalls grub packages and dpkg picks up a config in /var/run/debconf that references the now-missing /dev/disk/by-id/.
If I'm right, a fix would be for the grub dpkg to more gracefully handle missing configuration directories. At least to print a more clear error, or even better to force a reconfigure to recover.
I think the underlying problem is my system hardware changed (from physical to virtual). 23.04 is booting fine on the new virtual hardware but /dev/disk/by-id/ no longer exists. When I go to upgrade to 23.10 it reinstalls grub packages and dpkg picks up a config in /var/run/debconf that references the now-missing /dev/disk/by-id/.
If I'm right, a fix would be for the grub dpkg to more gracefully handle missing configuration directories. At least to print a more clear error, or even better to force a reconfigure to recover.
Lots of detail on the problem here: https:/ /nelsonslog. wordpress. com/2024/ 02/07/ubuntu- 23-10-upgraded- signed- grub-failed/