Network-Manager.services are all masked after last update

[BertN45]

After the update from Thursday 19-8 to Friday 20-8 the network stopped working. I restored the system to the state of a week ago and retried the update using:
- the update manager
- apt dist-upgrade
The network does not work, because all 3 network-manager.services are masked and thus is it impossible to start them even by hand.
During the install process I saw an error message about a missing config file related to inetd.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 21.10
Package: network-manager 1.32.2-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.13.0-14.14-generic 5.13.1
Uname: Linux 5.13.0-14-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu67
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
Date: Fri Aug 20 21:36:40 2021
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-05-06 (106 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 21.10 "Impish Indri" - Alpha amd64 (20210506)
IpRoute:
 default via 192.168.1.1 dev enp0s3 proto dhcp metric 100
 169.254.0.0/16 dev enp0s3 scope link metric 1000
 192.168.1.0/24 dev enp0s3 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.126 metric 100
IwConfig:
 lo no wireless extensions.

 enp0s3 no wireless extensions.
NetworkManager.state:
 [main]
 NetworkingEnabled=true
 WirelessEnabled=true
 WWANEnabled=true
RfKill:

SourcePackage: network-manager
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
nmcli-con:
 NAME UUID TYPE TIMESTAMP TIMESTAMP-REAL AUTOCONNECT AUTOCONNECT-PRIORITY READONLY DBUS-PATH ACTIVE DEVICE STATE ACTIVE-PATH SLAVE FILENAME
 Wired connection 1 f23270a0-5ecf-3402-8b63-2441ddf18edb ethernet 1629509674 vie 20 ago 2021 21:34:34 yes -999 no /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Settings/1 yes enp0s3 activated /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1 -- /run/NetworkManager/system-connections/Wired connection 1.nmconnection
nmcli-dev:
 DEVICE TYPE STATE IP4-CONNECTIVITY IP6-CONNECTIVITY DBUS-PATH CONNECTION CON-UUID CON-PATH
 enp0s3 ethernet connected full full /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/2 Wired connection 1 f23270a0-5ecf-3402-8b63-2441ddf18edb /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/1
 lo loopback unmanaged unknown unknown /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/1 -- -- --
nmcli-nm:
 RUNNING VERSION STATE STARTUP CONNECTIVITY NETWORKING WIFI-HW WIFI WWAN-HW WWAN
 running 1.32.2 connected started full enabled enabled enabled enabled enabled

[BertN45 (lammert-nijhof)]

The third try did succeed using the update manager, that went to a partial update like the first time, but this time it worked.
The difference between both times was, that in the update from Wednesday to Thursday, the update of ppp did not happen, it was in the list of updates, but not selected to be updated (v).
The next update from Thursday to Friday caused the network to fail afterwards.

The problem seems related to some sequence issue in the updates.