Update-manager marks upgrades as completed even if they aren't

[MarcRandolph]

Binary package hint: update-manager

After running out of disk space on /boot in the middle of an upgrade (due to Bug #105113), I noticed that update-manager marks all packages as upgraded, even if some failed.

The problem is that even *IF* the user studies the log output and fixes the problem (in my case, finds the "No space left on device" message that is hidden in the detail logs), update-manager provides them no way to reattempt the upgrade; when they go into update-manager later, the failing package(s) are no longer listed as needing to be installed.

Not only does this mean they have to open a shell and do it manually after fixing the problem (in this case, clearing some disk space), but could allow the user to forget to "finish" the upgrade, or worse, misled the user into thinking the upgrade actually did complete because it is not listed in the upgrade-manager queue.

This is easy to reproduce: make sure the /boot partition doesn't quite have enough space for a new kernel, and then attempt to upgrade the kernel. When it fails, simply delete files so that it has enough space, and then use aptitude or apt-get to install.

Running 8.04.1, and
$ apt-cache policy update-manager
update-manager:
  Installed: 1:0.87.27
  Candidate: 1:0.87.27
  Version table:
 *** 1:0.87.27 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

I've also submitted Bug #254477 on potentially confusing feedback to the user when upgrades fail.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

Can you please attach the log /var/log/apt/term.log to this bugreport?

[MarcRandolph (mrand)]

/var/log/apt/term.log attached

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Thanks for reporting this bug and any supporting documentation. Since this bug has enough information provided for a developer to begin work, I'm going to mark it as confirmed and let them handle it from here. Thanks for taking the time to make Ubuntu better!

[MarcRandolph (mrand)]

I intended on forwarding a different bug to paper cuts rather than this one... but since it is already here, I'll let you all decide if it is worthy. This one may be more than a trival fix.

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. However, a paper cut should be a small usability issue , in the default Ubuntu 9.10 install , that affects many people and is quick and easy to fix. So this bug can't be addressed as part of the project.

its a bug not a papercut

For further info about papercuts criteria , pls read > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut

Don't worry though, This bug has been marked as "invalid" ONLY in the papercuts project.