upgrade from 15.10 to 16.04 broken, bricks computer

[teo1978]

I upgraded (or tried to) from 15.10 to 16.04.

After a few errors as per bug 1561467 and a few crash-report popups which I don't know whether were related or not, I finally got the error message:

"Could not install the upgrades
The upgrade has aborted. YOUR SYSTEM COULD BE IN AN UNUSABLE STATE. A recovery will run now (dpkg --configure -a)"
(emphasys added).

By clicking "Close", I expedted the "recovery" to run and hopefully recover something, but nothing happened.
Almost immediately, the upgrade window with the checklist ("download stuff", "install stuff", ... "cleanup", "restart computer") disappeared (without prompting me to restart the computer) and I got a message like "Upgrade complete. The system was updated but there were errors" or something like that. (obviously this is all unacceptable: you tell me my system could be unusable and don't give me a clue about what the fuck happened and what I am supposed to do?!?)

So, I tried running "dpkg --configure -a" in a terminal, but I only got a very long series of almost identical errors regarding dependency problems for many many packages, which ended more or less like "Aborting, too many errors".

After a bit of googling, I tried this which I seemed to understand could maybe fix the issue:
  sudo apt-get -f install
(or "sudo apt-get install -f", can't remember now)

This seems to have worked. I could reboot (got a couple of crash reports, I hope they won't pop up at every reboot), my system is now 16.04 and tried some random stuff which seems to work.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: apt 1.2.15
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-53.74-generic 4.4.30
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-53-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sun Dec 11 23:17:12 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-11 (1157 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
SourcePackage: apt
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-12-11 (0 days ago)
---
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.2
Architecture: amd64
CrashDB: ubuntu
CurrentDesktop: Unity
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-10-11 (1158 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia
Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-53.74-generic 4.4.30
Tags: xenial dist-upgrade
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-53-generic x86_64
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-12-11 (1 days ago)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dialout dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo vboxusers wireshark
VarLogDistupgradeTermlog:

_MarkForUpload: True

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Could you please run ubuntu-bug 1649153 so log files regarding the upgrade process will be added to the bug?

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

$ ubuntu-bug 1649153
/usr/share/apport/apport-gtk:16: PyGIWarning: Wnck was imported without specifying a version first. Use gi.require_version('Wnck', '3.0') before import to ensure that the right version gets loaded.
  from gi.repository import GLib, Wnck, GdkX11, Gdk

Then nothing happens.

By the way, I get the same warning (since the upgrade) if I run "ubuntu-bug package-name", but it does work in that case...

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 08:45:07PM -0000, teo1978 wrote:
> $ ubuntu-bug 1649153
> /usr/share/apport/apport-gtk:16: PyGIWarning: Wnck was imported without specifying a version first. Use gi.require_version('Wnck', '3.0') before import to ensure that the right version gets loaded.
> from gi.repository import GLib, Wnck, GdkX11, Gdk

Ah, that was my mistake, I meant "apport-collect 1649153".

Thanks!
--
Brian Murray

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

apport information

[teo1978 (teo8976)]

Could you check whether I uploaded all the expected files?
The page where I landed after authorizing the application to use launchpad didn't show any feedback of the upload progress, neither did apport-collect in the terminal, which did show an error:

$ apport-collect 1649153
/usr/share/apport/apport-gtk:16: PyGIWarning: Wnck was imported without specifying a version first. Use gi.require_version('Wnck', '3.0') before import to ensure that the right version gets loaded.
  from gi.repository import GLib, Wnck, GdkX11, Gdk
The authorization page:
 (https://launchpad.net/+authorize-token?oauth_token=D68nZhNcdRP7hz4Hsk2f&allow_permission=DESKTOP_INTEGRATION)
should be opening in your browser. Use your browser to authorize
this program to access Launchpad on your behalf.
Waiting to hear from Launchpad about your decision...
Created new window in existing browser session.
dpkg-query: no packages found matching ubuntu-release-upgrader

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

On Mon, Dec 12, 2016 at 10:16:07PM -0000, teo1978 wrote:
> Could you check whether I uploaded all the expected files?
> The page where I landed after authorizing the application to use launchpad didn't show any feedback of the upload progress, neither did apport-collect in the terminal, which did show an error:
>
> $ apport-collect 1649153
> /usr/share/apport/apport-gtk:16: PyGIWarning: Wnck was imported without specifying a version first. Use gi.require_version('Wnck', '3.0') before import to ensure that the right version gets loaded.
> from gi.repository import GLib, Wnck, GdkX11, Gdk
> The authorization page:
> (https://launchpad.net/+authorize-token?oauth_token=D68nZhNcdRP7hz4Hsk2f&allow_permission=DESKTOP_INTEGRATION)
> should be opening in your browser. Use your browser to authorize
> this program to access Launchpad on your behalf.
> Waiting to hear from Launchpad about your decision...
> Created new window in existing browser session.
> dpkg-query: no packages found matching ubuntu-release-upgrader

The log files I expected were attached.

--
Brian Murray

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

From Apttermlog.txt we can see the following:

Preparing to unpack .../systemd_229-4ubuntu12_amd64.deb ...
De-configuring udev (225-1ubuntu9.1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/systemd_229-4ubuntu12_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 2

This looks like the same error as in bug 1606767.