windowmanager (metacity) crashed during upgrade to precise

[Ernst Kloppenburg]

about halfway through installation of the package upgrades the metacity window manager crashed

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: update-manager 1:0.156.14.4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-19.33-generic 3.0.27
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon May 21 22:23:11 2012
GsettingsChanges:
 com.ubuntu.update-manager check-new-release-ignore 'precise'
 com.ubuntu.update-manager first-run false
 com.ubuntu.update-manager launch-time 1337628673
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release amd64 (20101007)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: update-manager
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-05-21 (0 days ago)

[Ernst Kloppenburg (ernst-kloppenburg)]

trying to restart metacity after the crash via ssh resulted in an error message along the lines of: could not load theme ambiance
format for image file could not be determined

later, when more packages of the upgrade were installed, the restart of metacity became possible again

btw. the desktop running was gnome-classic (not unity)