Upgrade failure does not provide adequate next-step info

[David R Chase]

I am presented with this.

"An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade.

 This was likely caused by:
 * Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu
Please use the tool 'ppa-purge' from the ppa-purge
package to remove software from a Launchpad PPA and
try the upgrade again.

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'."

ppa-purge is a command with "mandatory options" and I do not know what they are, and the upgrade error message does not tell me either. Therefore, I am stuck. I do not know how to find those options, etc, if there is a mechanical process for doing so, I think it would be super-excellent to, uh, mechanize the invocation of ppa-purge. And if that is actually not a safe thing to do, do you think it is wise to hand it off to this ignorant primate instead?

I see here that maybe I could get more information at http://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ -- a little too late to put that here, after all the time I put into creating an account etc, if that's is such a great idea, PUT IT IN THE ERROR MESSAGE INSTEAD. Each hurdle between me and my goal raises my blood pressure and makes me think snarky thoughts about Linux and its developers.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 2:18.04.38 [origin: unknown]
Uname: Linux 4.9.230-76 aarch64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.23
Architecture: arm64
CrashDB: ubuntu
CurrentDesktop: MATE
Date: Mon Mar 15 21:51:47 2021
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: ubuntu-release-upgrader
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2021-03-15 (0 days ago)
VarLogDistupgradeLspcitxt:

VarLogDistupgradeTermlog:

[Jouni Mettala (jouni-mettala)]

There is a button to convert this bug to a question. You can still do it if you want.

VarLogDistupgradeMainlog.txt shows you have packages from
http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-toolchain-r/test/ubuntu
It seems http://ports.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-ports/ repositories are used.
There are some third party repositories that are not ppa's.
There are some foreign packages installed.
If you know how these could be solved by some automatic please tell how.

Do you want to convert this bug to a question.

[David R Chase (drchase)]

This is not a question. This is a bug. Converting this to a question would not eliminate all the upgrade hurdles for anyone else.

That you would think that "you can turn this into a question" is a reasonable response to this bug report, is itself a problem.

[David R Chase (drchase)]

I.e., you have an error message about foreign packages.
Great. I don't know what they are.
I did not install them, as far as I know.

Does the upgrade process not know what they are?
Why not name them?
Looking in a log file is an EXTRA STEP FOR ME.
I COULD MAKE A MISTAKE.
I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I AM DOING.

Next, given those names, is there a process for constructing a command line for ppa-purge?
If not, what do you think the chance is that I will, by myself, be able to construct this command line? Pretty darn low, I'd say. I do not want to ask questions. I do not want to join a commmunity. I want to upgrade my OS.

So there had better be a process. Can it be automated?
Fine, then automate it.