unresolvable" problem when upgrading from 7.10 to 8.04

[Scott Carpenter]

Binary package hint: update-manager

Description: Ubuntu 7.10
Release: 7.10

Hi, I'm trying to update (using System / Administration / Update Manager) from 7.10 to 8.04, and getting this message:

----------------------------
A 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 against the 'update-manager' package and include the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade/ in the bugreport.
----------------------------

I'm not doing anything with pre-releases, and I don't think there's anything unusual on this machine that might be getting in the way. I've previously upgraded from 6.10 to 7.04 to 7.10 with pretty much the same stuff.

I'm attaching main.log from /var/log/dist-upgrade. It ends with:

2008-10-04 13:37:14,941 DEBUG Marking 'ubuntu-desktop' for upgrade
2008-10-04 13:37:15,317 DEBUG The package 'nvidia-glx' is marked for removal but it's in the removal blacklist
2008-10-04 13:37:34,442 ERROR Dist-upgrade failed: 'A essential package would have to be removed'

I found /usr/share/update-manager/removal_blacklist.cfg and tried commenting out the nvidia-glx entries, but get the same error as above.

Please let me know if you need to see more logs.

I also found:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/249329

Relating to Intrepid, which made me think of looking for removal_blacklist.cfg and commenting out the nvidia lines.

Thanks for your help!

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Thanks. Could you please attach all of the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade log as separate attachments?

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

Sure -- sorry, should have just done that up front!

term.log is 0 KB -- I'll include the others...

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Do you have a package called 'xserver-xorg-video' installed on your machine?

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

I tried: dpkg -s xserver-xorg-video
Package `xserver-xorg-video' is not installed and no info is available.

However, there are many similar packages:

dpkg --get-selections | grep xorg-video

xserver-xorg-video-all install
xserver-xorg-video-amd install
xserver-xorg-video-apm install
xserver-xorg-video-ark install
xserver-xorg-video-ati install
xserver-xorg-video-chips install
xserver-xorg-video-cirrus install
xserver-xorg-video-cyrix install
xserver-xorg-video-dummy install
xserver-xorg-video-fbdev install
xserver-xorg-video-glint install
xserver-xorg-video-i128 install
xserver-xorg-video-i740 install
xserver-xorg-video-i810 install
xserver-xorg-video-imstt install
xserver-xorg-video-intel install
xserver-xorg-video-mga install
xserver-xorg-video-neomagic install
xserver-xorg-video-newport install
xserver-xorg-video-nsc install
xserver-xorg-video-nv install
xserver-xorg-video-psb install
xserver-xorg-video-rendition install
xserver-xorg-video-s3 install
xserver-xorg-video-s3virge install
xserver-xorg-video-savage install
xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion install
xserver-xorg-video-sis install
xserver-xorg-video-sisusb install
xserver-xorg-video-tdfx install
xserver-xorg-video-tga install
xserver-xorg-video-trident install
xserver-xorg-video-tseng install
xserver-xorg-video-v4l install
xserver-xorg-video-vesa install
xserver-xorg-video-vga install
xserver-xorg-video-via install
xserver-xorg-video-vmware install
xserver-xorg-video-voodoo install

[pierrot66 (jeantet-yvette)]

 Merci de votre aide ,j'ai réinstallé ubuntu et c'est reparti
Salutations

> Message du 05/10/08 02:31
> De : "Chris Coulson"
> A : <email address hidden>
> Copie à :
> Objet : [Bug 278285] Re: "unresolvable" problem when upgrading from 7.10 to8.04
>
>
> Do you have a package called 'xserver-xorg-video' installed on your
> machine?
>
> --
> "unresolvable" problem when upgrading from 7.10 to 8.04
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/278285
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to update-
> manager in ubuntu.
>
> Status in “update-manager” source package in Ubuntu: Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: update-manager
>
> Description: Ubuntu 7.10
> Release: 7.10
>
> Hi, I'm trying to update (using System / Administration / Update Manager) from 7.10 to 8.04, and getting this message:
>
> ----------------------------
> A 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 against the 'update-manager' package and include the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade/ in the bugreport.
> ----------------------------
>
> I'm not doing anything with pre-releases, and I don't think there's anything unusual on this machine that might be getting in the way. I've previously upgraded from 6.10 to 7.04 to 7.10 with pretty much the same stuff.
>
> I'm attaching main.log from /var/log/dist-upgrade. It ends with:
>
> 2008-10-04 13:37:14,941 DEBUG Marking 'ubuntu-desktop' for upgrade
> 2008-10-04 13:37:15,317 DEBUG The package 'nvidia-glx' is marked for removal but it's in the removal blacklist
> 2008-10-04 13:37:34,442 ERROR Dist-upgrade failed: 'A essential package would have to be removed'
>
> I found /usr/share/update-manager/removal_blacklist.cfg and tried commenting out the nvidia-glx entries, but get the same error as above.
>
> Please let me know if you need to see more logs.
>
> I also found:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/249329
>
> Relating to Intrepid, which made me think of looking for removal_blacklist.cfg and commenting out the nvidia lines.
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
>

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

Hi, Chris, or Someone, any ideas on this one? Are there any other options for upgrading?

Thanks!

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

Hello? Should I just give up? Really would appreciate a word or two of advice on this, or maybe the dialog should be changed to not direct people to report the problem here. Do I actually have to reinstall from scratch? (Sounds like a Windows kijnd of solution.) I understand this is all free and you guys are mostly volunteers, and there are a lot more things to do than time to do them in, but this is kind of a showstopper in trying to keep current with the distribution. Up until now everything has worked so well.

Thanks once again for your help.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Sorry Scott - it seems that someone changed the title of this report to the same title as another commonly reported bug, without leaving any explanation for doing so. Subsequently, I didn't think this bug needed my attention, based on it's new title. I've changed it back now.

I'm stuck here. Michael, could you take a look at this please?

Thanks

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

Thanks, Chris!

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

Tried on my main machine today and looks like the same issue here. With this one I originally installed 7.04 in May 2007 and upgraded to 7.10 in April 2008. I'm attaching the dist-upgrade files.

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

Any word on this one? Tried the other day on one of my machines and still with the same error.

Thank you.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Scott, your diagnostic was right but you can't remove it from the blacklist directly installed on your system because the updater of the target release is downloaded when you start the upgrade. nvidia stuff has been added to the blacklist a long time ago and removed in Intrepid (this is the bug 249329). I don't know if it can be removed from Hardy.

For now, if you want to upgrade, you can switch to some vesa mode, uninstall nvidia-glx, proceed with the upgrade, then reinstall the driver.

I'm confirming this issue and marking as high because this can potentially hit a lot of people.

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

Thank you! I'll try this as soon as I can and let you know how it turns out.

[spiepie (spiepie)]

HI
Installed 7.10 and tried upgrade manager to 8.04 with no luck. Initially had this same problem described above. really not very happy with Ubuntu so far!

wasted hours that i thought was a past problem with using windows!!!
A 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 against the 'update-manager' package and include the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade/ in the bugreport.

repeated this attempt and now have another error
'error authenticating some packages 'the list contains ubuntu files! what is this all about ? surely ubuntu files should not be a problem. loosing patience and thinking of sacking ubuntu

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Hi spiepie,
We appreciate the difficulties you are facing, but it would helpful if you could provide the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade/ and requested above. This will greatly aid us in tracking down your problem.

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

Good news! I was able to upgrade on my first machine.

I didn't really know what to do about removing the driver -- in my searching I got the idea to try "sudo apt-get remove nvidia-glx", and that removed some stuff and after a reboot didn't seem to affect my graphics situation. I had expected I might break something, but everything was working normally. (Is nvidia-glx the proprietary driver? I'm not even sure I'm using that -- I got this machine from System 76 and have never tinkered with the graphics driver at all.)

Also before trying the upgrade again, I installed a whole bunch of updates, so I don't know if there may have been a fix in there, but anyway, now when I ran the upgrade, it worked just fine -- no problems at all!

Thanks, Everyone, for your help with this. I'll report back with results on my other machine.

[Scott Carpenter (scottc)]

And now I've upgraded my other (main) machine using the same solution of "sudo apt-get remove nvidia-glx". Again had no effect on my machine and went straight to upgrade with no troubles.

Thanks again!

[Risto H. Kurppa (risto.kurppa)]

Kubuntu Intrepid and upgrading to Jaunty with "update-notifier-kde -u" gives me the same message. I removed nvidia-glx-180 but it still wasn't a success. Files attached.

[Risto H. Kurppa (risto.kurppa)]

I was able to start the upgrade after removing these packages: libgconf2.0-cil libgconf2-4 gwenview kipi-plugins. They of course also removed some other packages but anyway, things started rolling again.. If someone ever reads this, I hope this helps you.

[to be removed (liw)]

Based on Scott Carpenter's and Risto H. Kurppa's comments, this would seem to be a bug in the proprietary nvidia driver packaging, so I'm reassigning to nvidia-graphics-drivers-180.

[Bryce Harrington (bryce)]

Closing bug as ancient. Haven't seen it in more current versions of Ubuntu, but if anyone reproduces it on Precise 12.04 or newer, please re-file.