Ubuntu

total system crash during upgrade

Asked by fim

When fetching updates for my kubuntu system there was the proposal to update the whole system to 7.04.

I started that upgrade (all other applications were stopped beforehand).
After an hour or two apparently there was an error. All I got was a dialog window titled "error" but with no content (especially no button or any information).

I tried to close the dialog but it had to be stopped by the system after some seconds. This also stopped the whole upgrade process.

After that I tried to reboot but the system won't come up anymore. There are various error messages during boot up but the last thing before hanging is the message that some disk check was okay.

Is there anything I can do now?

Question information

Language:
English Edit question
Status:
Solved
For:
Ubuntu Edit question
Assignee:
No assignee Edit question
Solved by:
thebadrash
Solved:
Last query:
Last reply:
Revision history for this message
thebadrash (tom-thebadrash) said : 		#1

I have the exact same problem. I believe that it's linked to a keymap issue as when booting in recovery mode, it's at the point of loading keymap and terminal font that the process freezes.

Any ideas would be great as this has frozen me out of my computer!

Revision history for this message
fim (brassel) said : 		#2

On my system the terminal font changes (about the last thing it does) so I guess it must be whatever happens after that step.

There seem to be a lot of people having crushing problems with the upgrade tool. They have reported in the bug area though. But I cannot see any helpful cmment at all yet.

Revision history for this message
fim (brassel) said : 		#3

Hej, thebadrash!

I just read something about a problem with upgrading because of some nvidia drivers. Do you have an nvidia graphic card, too?

Revision history for this message
Best thebadrash (tom-thebadrash) said : 		#4

Hello mate.

Yeah I do have an nvidia card. But better still, I'm posting this from a Feisty desktop because I fixed the problem!
Not saying that you have exactly the same issue as me (so this might not work), but what I did was taken from another post on this site. It basically involves booting from a Kubuntu/Ubuntu live cd and redoing your update in the console:

boot to the live cd
Once you get to the desktop press [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [F1] to get to a console. Now run these commands.
Go to single user maintenance mode.
#sudo init 1

Now mount the root filesystem. mkdir /media/sda1 if it doesn't exist.
#mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /media/sda1

[NB: my disk was '/dev/hdb1', so yours may be different too... use the system settings / filesystems dialogue to make sure you know the device name of your hard disk.

Now mount the /proc and /dev file systems in the root partition.
#mount --bind /proc /media/sda1/proc
#mount --bind /dev /media//sda1/dev

Now you can chroot to the root partition.
#chroot /media/sda1 /bin/bash

Now you should have a 'root@ubuntu>' prompt. From there, do
#sudo apt-get install

It'll say something like 'one package to install' but hey presto, it also handled all the left over upgrade stuff from the previous session.

Let me know if this works!
(answer borrowed and adapted from https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/4991 )

Revision history for this message
fim (brassel) said : 		#5

Thanks very much!
Unfortunately I had already decided to install everything fresh (an old windows habit I guess).

I was already in a rescue (root) shell for my system beforehand (with the alternate install cd.)

Knowing now that all I would have had to do was type

apt-get install

I can almost cry.

And of course now I got the next problem...

But thank you very much for your answer! Maybe there's a next time (hopefully not).