update-manager crashed with AttributeError in update(): 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'saveDistUpgrade'

[Bill Risch]

Total kernel panic when trying to do latest update to system.
Total system failure.

ProblemType: Crash
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: update-manager 1:0.181
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-2.6-generic 3.8.0-rc4
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-2-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.8-0ubuntu4
Aptdaemon:

Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Feb 10 08:02:53 2013
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/update-manager
GsettingsChanges:
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'first-run' b'false'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'launch-time' b'1360504947'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'show-details' b'true'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'window-height' b'315'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'window-width' b'640'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-10-23 (109 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python3.3
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/update-manager --no-update --no-focus-on-map
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
PythonArgs: ['/usr/bin/update-manager', '--no-update', '--no-focus-on-map']
SourcePackage: update-manager
Title: update-manager crashed with AttributeError in update(): 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'saveDistUpgrade'
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo

[Bill Risch (brisch)]

Latest update caused total kernel panic.
Using an older kernel to report problem.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

I encountered an update-manager failure, and apport redirected me to this bug. It had nothing to do with a kernel panic. update-manager was interrupted (hard) mid-upgrade, and I had to 'dpkg --configure -a' to clean up after the interrupt; after that, update-manager started normally on the second time, either because of the dpkg cleanup or because of its own cache cleaning.

[Patrik B. (inoki-deactivatedaccount)]

I was re-directed to this bug report when I received a partial update and my system cannot accept upgrades via the GUI for some time now. It always says there are untrusted sources and the update fails. I've tried all the known workarounds, the only one working is forcing an upgrade via terminal.