Upgrade stopped because I didn't have ubuntu-minimal installed

[Robin Sheat]

I'm not sure why I didn't have it installed, but I didn't. Totally possible I removed it at some stage and didn't notice. The error message was a bit vague about it though:

After updating your package information, the essential package 'ubuntu-minimal' could not be located. This may be because you have no official mirrors listed in your software sources, or because of excessive load on the mirror you are using. See /etc/apt/sources.list for the current list of configured software sources.
In the case of an overloaded mirror, you may want to try the upgrade again later.

I've reinstalled ubuntu-minimal, and I"m still getting that error message.

I changed mirrors, and it seems to be working now, although there might be other variables at play.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 1:0.190.6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-32.53-generic 3.5.7.11
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-32-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu11
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Jun 10 14:07:59 2013
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: ubuntu-release-upgrader
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2013-06-10 (0 days ago)
VarLogDistupgradeAptlog:
 Log time: 2013-06-10 14:06:28.410639
 Log time: 2013-06-10 14:07:00.328786
 Log time: 2013-06-10 14:07:48.972792
 Log time: 2013-06-10 14:08:03.568704
VarLogDistupgradeTermlog:

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[dskecse (dskecse)]

Also takes place while upgrading to 14.04 trustry from 13.10 sausy.

[Jānis Kangarooo (kangarooo)]

login as: root
root@188.226.157.182's password:
Welcome to Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS (GNU/Linux 3.8.0-29-generic x86_64)

 * Documentation: https://help.ubuntu.com/

  System information as of Mon Apr 21 17:55:22 EDT 2014

  System load: 0.12 Processes: 110
  Usage of /: 16.7% of 19.56GB Users logged in: 1
  Memory usage: 30% IP address for eth0: 188.226.157.182
  Swap usage: 73%

  Graph this data and manage this system at:
    https://landscape.canonical.com/

0 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

*** System restart required ***
No mail.
Last login: Mon Apr 21 17:28:43 2014 from 94.30.237.154
root@54321:~# do-release-upgrade -d
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
Get:1 Upgrade tool signature [198 B]
Get:2 Upgrade tool [1,148 kB]
Fetched 1,148 kB in 0s (0 B/s)
authenticate 'trusty.tar.gz' against 'trusty.tar.gz.gpg'
extracting 'trusty.tar.gz'
Updating repository information

Third party sources disabled

Some third party entries in your sources.list were disabled. You can
re-enable them after the upgrade with the 'software-properties' tool
or your package manager.

To continue please press [ENTER]

Hit http://security.ubuntu.com trusty-security Release.gpg
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com trusty-security Release
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com trusty-security/universe amd64 Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com trusty-security/universe i386 Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com trusty-security/universe TranslationIndex
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com trusty-security/universe Translation-en
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty Release.gpg
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-updates Release.gpg [933 B]
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty Release
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-updates Release [58.5 kB]
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty/universe amd64 Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty/universe i386 Packages
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty/universe TranslationIndex
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-updates/universe amd64 Packages [1,602 B]
Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-updates/universe i386 Packages [1,601 B]
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-updates/universe TranslationIndex
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty/universe Translation-en
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-updates/universe Translation-en
Fetched 62.7 kB in 0s (0 B/s)

Checking package manager
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Building data structures... Done

Invalid package information

After updating your package information, the essential package
'ubuntu-minimal' could not be located. This may be because you have
no official mirrors listed in your software sources, or because of
excessive load on the mirror you are using. See /etc/apt/sources.list
for the current list of configured software sources.
In the case of an overloaded mirror, you may want to try the upgrade
again later.

Restoring original system state

Aborting
      g package lists... 4%
*** Collecting problem information

The collected information can be sent to the developers to improve the
application. This migh...

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

From VarLogDistupgradeMainlog.txt:

2013-06-10 14:07:04,055 DEBUG rewriteSourcesList()
2013-06-10 14:07:04,057 DEBUG examining: 'deb http://ubuntu.catalyst.net.nz/ubuntu/ quantal main restricted'
2013-06-10 14:07:04,058 DEBUG entry '# deb http://ubuntu.catalyst.net.nz/ubuntu/ raring main restricted # uitgeschakeld bij opwaardering naar raring' was disabled (unknown mirror)

It looks like you were using an unofficial mirror of Ubuntu and it got disabled, but you were using security.ubuntu.com so it still tried to upgrade and then failed.