Activity log for bug #1771387

Date Who What changed Old value New value Message
2018-05-15 16:16:44 Mekk bug added bug
2018-05-15 16:17:25 Mekk description Situation =============== As more-or-less usual, my attempt to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 failed with "Could not calculate upgrade" error (well, one even more confusing and less google-able, as translated to my national language). Also, as usual, I found myself confused, without any pointers what to do next. I tried a few times, tried It took me switching to LANG=C (to see more googlish error messages) and about 20 minutes of scanning various forums until I found suggestion to check /var/log/dist-upgrade There I found some rather cryptic remark about unresolvable cyclic dependency which may be caused by held packages, which nevertheless inspired me to look for a way to find held packages. A few more minutes of googling and I found out about apt-mark showhold which nicely listed my few held packages (nvidia-304 and some related, IIRC results of driver problems I resolved 2 years ago). I removed those packages and now my upgrade is progressing. But whole experience was very unpleasant. Suggested changes (tiny changes but with large impact) ====================================================== 1. Whenever do-release-upgrade fails, it should suggest checking out /var/log/dist-upgrade. Simply, instead of finishing with "Could not calculate the upgrade. Unresolvable error happened." finish with "Could not calculate the upgrade. Unresolvable error happened. Technical logs of failed upgrade can be found in /var/log/dist-upgrade" This very sentence would save me at least 2 hours. 2. In case upgrade calculation fails due to held or unofficial packages, either list problematic packages, or suggest commands which will list them. For example, my very case would be resolved in a minute if installer printed something like: Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages: nvidia-304 nvidia-304-dev nvidia-current-updates (consider removing those packages temporarily to resolve the problem) or Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages (use apt-mark showhold to list such packages on your system, and consider removing them temporarily to resolve the problem) Situation =============== As more-or-less usual, my attempt to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 failed with "Could not calculate upgrade" error (well, one even more confusing and less google-able, as translated to my national language). Also, as usual, I found myself confused, without any pointers what to do next. I tried a few times, tried googling, to no success. It took me switching to LANG=C (to see more googlish error messages) and about 20 minutes of scanning various forums until I found suggestion to check /var/log/dist-upgrade There I found some rather cryptic remark about unresolvable cyclic dependency which may be caused by held packages, which nevertheless inspired me to look for a way to find held packages. A few more minutes of googling and I found out about      apt-mark showhold which nicely listed my few held packages (nvidia-304 and some related, IIRC results of driver problems I resolved 2 years ago). I removed those packages and now my upgrade is progressing. But whole experience was very unpleasant. Suggested changes (tiny changes but with large impact) ====================================================== 1. Whenever do-release-upgrade fails, it should suggest checking out /var/log/dist-upgrade.    Simply, instead of finishing with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened."    finish with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened.        Technical logs of failed upgrade can be found in /var/log/dist-upgrade"    This very sentence would save me at least 2 hours. 2. In case upgrade calculation fails due to held or unofficial packages, either list problematic    packages, or suggest commands which will list them. For example, my very case would be resolved    in a minute if installer printed something like:        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages:           nvidia-304 nvidia-304-dev nvidia-current-updates        (consider removing those packages temporarily to resolve the problem)    or        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages        (use apt-mark showhold to list such packages on your system, and         consider removing them temporarily to resolve the problem)
2018-05-15 17:14:52 Hans P. Möller bug added subscriber Hans P Möller
2018-06-01 17:18:36 Brian Murray ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu): status New Triaged
2018-06-01 17:18:49 Brian Murray tags usability rls-cc-incoming usability
2018-06-01 19:51:46 Hans P. Möller removed subscriber Hans P Möller
2018-10-11 14:40:13 Brian Murray tags rls-cc-incoming usability rls-dd-incoming usability
2018-12-11 23:11:59 Brian Murray ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu): status Triaged In Progress
2018-12-11 23:12:05 Brian Murray ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu): assignee Brian Murray (brian-murray)
2018-12-11 23:12:09 Brian Murray ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu): importance Undecided Medium
2018-12-11 23:15:44 Launchpad Janitor branch linked lp:~brian-murray/ubuntu-release-upgrader/improve-upgrade-failure-messages
2018-12-12 13:34:19 Francis Ginther tags rls-dd-incoming usability id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability
2018-12-13 15:43:07 Launchpad Janitor ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu): status In Progress Fix Released
2019-01-08 16:27:56 Brian Murray description Situation =============== As more-or-less usual, my attempt to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 failed with "Could not calculate upgrade" error (well, one even more confusing and less google-able, as translated to my national language). Also, as usual, I found myself confused, without any pointers what to do next. I tried a few times, tried googling, to no success. It took me switching to LANG=C (to see more googlish error messages) and about 20 minutes of scanning various forums until I found suggestion to check /var/log/dist-upgrade There I found some rather cryptic remark about unresolvable cyclic dependency which may be caused by held packages, which nevertheless inspired me to look for a way to find held packages. A few more minutes of googling and I found out about      apt-mark showhold which nicely listed my few held packages (nvidia-304 and some related, IIRC results of driver problems I resolved 2 years ago). I removed those packages and now my upgrade is progressing. But whole experience was very unpleasant. Suggested changes (tiny changes but with large impact) ====================================================== 1. Whenever do-release-upgrade fails, it should suggest checking out /var/log/dist-upgrade.    Simply, instead of finishing with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened."    finish with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened.        Technical logs of failed upgrade can be found in /var/log/dist-upgrade"    This very sentence would save me at least 2 hours. 2. In case upgrade calculation fails due to held or unofficial packages, either list problematic    packages, or suggest commands which will list them. For example, my very case would be resolved    in a minute if installer printed something like:        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages:           nvidia-304 nvidia-304-dev nvidia-current-updates        (consider removing those packages temporarily to resolve the problem)    or        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages        (use apt-mark showhold to list such packages on your system, and         consider removing them temporarily to resolve the problem) Test Case --------- 1) add this PPA to your system 'sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers' 2) run 'sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' 3) try to upgrade to Cosmic 4) Observe the following message: "Could not calculate the upgrade An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade. This can be caused by: * Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu * Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu * Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal." With the version of the package from -proposed you should instead see: "" Situation =============== As more-or-less usual, my attempt to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 failed with "Could not calculate upgrade" error (well, one even more confusing and less google-able, as translated to my national language). Also, as usual, I found myself confused, without any pointers what to do next. I tried a few times, tried googling, to no success. It took me switching to LANG=C (to see more googlish error messages) and about 20 minutes of scanning various forums until I found suggestion to check /var/log/dist-upgrade There I found some rather cryptic remark about unresolvable cyclic dependency which may be caused by held packages, which nevertheless inspired me to look for a way to find held packages. A few more minutes of googling and I found out about      apt-mark showhold which nicely listed my few held packages (nvidia-304 and some related, IIRC results of driver problems I resolved 2 years ago). I removed those packages and now my upgrade is progressing. But whole experience was very unpleasant. Suggested changes (tiny changes but with large impact) ====================================================== 1. Whenever do-release-upgrade fails, it should suggest checking out /var/log/dist-upgrade.    Simply, instead of finishing with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened."    finish with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened.        Technical logs of failed upgrade can be found in /var/log/dist-upgrade"    This very sentence would save me at least 2 hours. 2. In case upgrade calculation fails due to held or unofficial packages, either list problematic    packages, or suggest commands which will list them. For example, my very case would be resolved    in a minute if installer printed something like:        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages:           nvidia-304 nvidia-304-dev nvidia-current-updates        (consider removing those packages temporarily to resolve the problem)    or        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages        (use apt-mark showhold to list such packages on your system, and         consider removing them temporarily to resolve the problem)
2019-01-08 16:29:12 Łukasz Zemczak ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu Cosmic): status New Fix Committed
2019-01-08 16:29:14 Łukasz Zemczak bug added subscriber Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team
2019-01-08 16:29:16 Łukasz Zemczak bug added subscriber SRU Verification
2019-01-08 16:29:18 Łukasz Zemczak tags id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability verification-needed verification-needed-cosmic
2019-01-08 16:31:26 Brian Murray description Test Case --------- 1) add this PPA to your system 'sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers' 2) run 'sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' 3) try to upgrade to Cosmic 4) Observe the following message: "Could not calculate the upgrade An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade. This can be caused by: * Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu * Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu * Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal." With the version of the package from -proposed you should instead see: "" Situation =============== As more-or-less usual, my attempt to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 failed with "Could not calculate upgrade" error (well, one even more confusing and less google-able, as translated to my national language). Also, as usual, I found myself confused, without any pointers what to do next. I tried a few times, tried googling, to no success. It took me switching to LANG=C (to see more googlish error messages) and about 20 minutes of scanning various forums until I found suggestion to check /var/log/dist-upgrade There I found some rather cryptic remark about unresolvable cyclic dependency which may be caused by held packages, which nevertheless inspired me to look for a way to find held packages. A few more minutes of googling and I found out about      apt-mark showhold which nicely listed my few held packages (nvidia-304 and some related, IIRC results of driver problems I resolved 2 years ago). I removed those packages and now my upgrade is progressing. But whole experience was very unpleasant. Suggested changes (tiny changes but with large impact) ====================================================== 1. Whenever do-release-upgrade fails, it should suggest checking out /var/log/dist-upgrade.    Simply, instead of finishing with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened."    finish with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened.        Technical logs of failed upgrade can be found in /var/log/dist-upgrade"    This very sentence would save me at least 2 hours. 2. In case upgrade calculation fails due to held or unofficial packages, either list problematic    packages, or suggest commands which will list them. For example, my very case would be resolved    in a minute if installer printed something like:        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages:           nvidia-304 nvidia-304-dev nvidia-current-updates        (consider removing those packages temporarily to resolve the problem)    or        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages        (use apt-mark showhold to list such packages on your system, and         consider removing them temporarily to resolve the problem) Test Case --------- 1) add this PPA to your system 'sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers' 2) run 'sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' 3) try to upgrade to Cosmic 4) Observe the following message: "Could not calculate the upgrade An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade. This can be caused by: * Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu * Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu * Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal." With the version of the package from -proposed you should instead see the following in the error message: "If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal. If you want to investigate this yourself the log files in '/var/log/dist-upgrade' will contain details about the upgrade. Specifically, look at 'main.log' and 'apt.log'." Situation =============== As more-or-less usual, my attempt to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 failed with "Could not calculate upgrade" error (well, one even more confusing and less google-able, as translated to my national language). Also, as usual, I found myself confused, without any pointers what to do next. I tried a few times, tried googling, to no success. It took me switching to LANG=C (to see more googlish error messages) and about 20 minutes of scanning various forums until I found suggestion to check /var/log/dist-upgrade There I found some rather cryptic remark about unresolvable cyclic dependency which may be caused by held packages, which nevertheless inspired me to look for a way to find held packages. A few more minutes of googling and I found out about      apt-mark showhold which nicely listed my few held packages (nvidia-304 and some related, IIRC results of driver problems I resolved 2 years ago). I removed those packages and now my upgrade is progressing. But whole experience was very unpleasant. Suggested changes (tiny changes but with large impact) ====================================================== 1. Whenever do-release-upgrade fails, it should suggest checking out /var/log/dist-upgrade.    Simply, instead of finishing with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened."    finish with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened.        Technical logs of failed upgrade can be found in /var/log/dist-upgrade"    This very sentence would save me at least 2 hours. 2. In case upgrade calculation fails due to held or unofficial packages, either list problematic    packages, or suggest commands which will list them. For example, my very case would be resolved    in a minute if installer printed something like:        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages:           nvidia-304 nvidia-304-dev nvidia-current-updates        (consider removing those packages temporarily to resolve the problem)    or        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages        (use apt-mark showhold to list such packages on your system, and         consider removing them temporarily to resolve the problem)
2019-01-08 17:08:19 Brian Murray description Test Case --------- 1) add this PPA to your system 'sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers' 2) run 'sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' 3) try to upgrade to Cosmic 4) Observe the following message: "Could not calculate the upgrade An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade. This can be caused by: * Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu * Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu * Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal." With the version of the package from -proposed you should instead see the following in the error message: "If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal. If you want to investigate this yourself the log files in '/var/log/dist-upgrade' will contain details about the upgrade. Specifically, look at 'main.log' and 'apt.log'." Situation =============== As more-or-less usual, my attempt to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 failed with "Could not calculate upgrade" error (well, one even more confusing and less google-able, as translated to my national language). Also, as usual, I found myself confused, without any pointers what to do next. I tried a few times, tried googling, to no success. It took me switching to LANG=C (to see more googlish error messages) and about 20 minutes of scanning various forums until I found suggestion to check /var/log/dist-upgrade There I found some rather cryptic remark about unresolvable cyclic dependency which may be caused by held packages, which nevertheless inspired me to look for a way to find held packages. A few more minutes of googling and I found out about      apt-mark showhold which nicely listed my few held packages (nvidia-304 and some related, IIRC results of driver problems I resolved 2 years ago). I removed those packages and now my upgrade is progressing. But whole experience was very unpleasant. Suggested changes (tiny changes but with large impact) ====================================================== 1. Whenever do-release-upgrade fails, it should suggest checking out /var/log/dist-upgrade.    Simply, instead of finishing with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened."    finish with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened.        Technical logs of failed upgrade can be found in /var/log/dist-upgrade"    This very sentence would save me at least 2 hours. 2. In case upgrade calculation fails due to held or unofficial packages, either list problematic    packages, or suggest commands which will list them. For example, my very case would be resolved    in a minute if installer printed something like:        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages:           nvidia-304 nvidia-304-dev nvidia-current-updates        (consider removing those packages temporarily to resolve the problem)    or        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages        (use apt-mark showhold to list such packages on your system, and         consider removing them temporarily to resolve the problem) Test Case --------- 1) add this PPA to your system 'sudo add-apt-repository ppa:oibaf/graphics-drivers' 2) run 'sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' 3) try to upgrade to Cosmic 4) Observe the following message: "Could not calculate the upgrade An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade. This can be caused by: * Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu * Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu * Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal." With the version of the package from -proposed you should instead see the following in the error message: "If none of this applies, then please report this bug using the command 'ubuntu-bug ubuntu-release-upgrader-core' in a terminal. If you want to investigate this yourself the log files in '/var/log/dist-upgrade' will contain details about the upgrade. Specifically, look at 'main.log' and 'apt.log'." Regression Potential -------------------- This change does end up breaking translations but the message is much more informative and lots of users have difficulty upgrading between releases which can leave them on an insecure (EoL) release of Ubuntu which is worse. Situation =============== As more-or-less usual, my attempt to upgrade from 16.04 to 18.04 failed with "Could not calculate upgrade" error (well, one even more confusing and less google-able, as translated to my national language). Also, as usual, I found myself confused, without any pointers what to do next. I tried a few times, tried googling, to no success. It took me switching to LANG=C (to see more googlish error messages) and about 20 minutes of scanning various forums until I found suggestion to check /var/log/dist-upgrade There I found some rather cryptic remark about unresolvable cyclic dependency which may be caused by held packages, which nevertheless inspired me to look for a way to find held packages. A few more minutes of googling and I found out about      apt-mark showhold which nicely listed my few held packages (nvidia-304 and some related, IIRC results of driver problems I resolved 2 years ago). I removed those packages and now my upgrade is progressing. But whole experience was very unpleasant. Suggested changes (tiny changes but with large impact) ====================================================== 1. Whenever do-release-upgrade fails, it should suggest checking out /var/log/dist-upgrade.    Simply, instead of finishing with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened."    finish with        "Could not calculate the upgrade.        Unresolvable error happened.        Technical logs of failed upgrade can be found in /var/log/dist-upgrade"    This very sentence would save me at least 2 hours. 2. In case upgrade calculation fails due to held or unofficial packages, either list problematic    packages, or suggest commands which will list them. For example, my very case would be resolved    in a minute if installer printed something like:        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages:           nvidia-304 nvidia-304-dev nvidia-current-updates        (consider removing those packages temporarily to resolve the problem)    or        Note: upgrade calculation could be caused by held packages        (use apt-mark showhold to list such packages on your system, and         consider removing them temporarily to resolve the problem)
2019-01-10 21:11:46 Brian Murray tags id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability verification-needed verification-needed-cosmic id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability verification-done verification-done-cosmic
2019-01-15 23:48:41 Launchpad Janitor ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu Cosmic): status Fix Committed Fix Released
2019-01-15 23:48:50 Chris Halse Rogers removed subscriber Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team
2019-01-22 17:45:29 Łukasz Zemczak ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu Bionic): status New Fix Committed
2019-01-22 17:45:31 Łukasz Zemczak bug added subscriber Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team
2019-01-22 17:45:35 Łukasz Zemczak tags id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability verification-done verification-done-cosmic id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability verification-done-cosmic verification-needed verification-needed-bionic
2019-01-23 14:54:58 Brian Murray tags id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability verification-done-cosmic verification-needed verification-needed-bionic id-5b5b2ceb30bee3278544fe94 rls-dd-incoming usability verification-done verification-done-bionic verification-done-cosmic
2019-01-31 09:20:22 Launchpad Janitor ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu Bionic): status Fix Committed Fix Released