Ubuntu
ubuntu-release-upgrader package

cannot upgrade to Ubuntu 18 from Ubuntu 16

Asked by Radhen

I was following the instructions present here
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-to-upgrade-from-ubuntu-linux-16-04-to-18-04/

to upgrade. I faced some issues with sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade. Some of my packages were broken so had to remove them. I believe the update and upgrade commands work fine now. Executing sudo do-release-upgrade does not work and I always get this message on the terminal saying "Restoring original system state". I cannot see any specific errors that could help me debug this issue.

Could I please get some assistant on this?

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 1:16.04.27
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-66.75~16.04.1-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-66-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.21
Architecture: amd64
CrashDB: ubuntu
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Thu Nov 14 07:46:55 2019
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-09-29 (411 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20180731)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: ubuntu-release-upgrader
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2019-11-14 (0 days ago)
VarLogDistupgradeAptclonesystemstate.tar.gz: Error: command ['pkexec', 'cat', '/var/log/dist-upgrade/apt-clone_system_state.tar.gz'] failed with exit code 127: pkexec must be setuid root

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This question was originally filed as bug #1852576.

Revision history for this message
Chris Guiver (guiverc) said : 		#1

Thank you for taking the time to report this issue and helping to make Ubuntu better.

Examining the information you have given us (esp. request at end), this does not appear to be a bug report so we are closing it and converting it to a question in the support tracker. We understand the difficulties you are facing, but it is better to raise problems you are having in the support tracker at https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu if you are uncertain if they are bugs.

You can also find help with your problem in the support forum of your local Ubuntu community http://loco.ubuntu.com/ or asking at https://askubuntu.com or https://ubuntuforums.org, or for more support options please look at https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/community-support/709

For help on reporting bugs, see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs.

Revision history for this message
Chris Guiver (guiverc) said : 		#2

`sudo apt update` updates your software lists
`sudo apt upgrade` upgrades programs within certain restrictions.

You should fully-upgrade your system before you attempt `do-release-upgrade` and I don't see evidence in what you put that you did that. Please use `sudo apt full-upgrade` first.

You also have many PPAs added; they are 3rd party software sources. For best release-upgrade, they should be removed first, then release-upgrade performed, then added PPAs back if still required. The tool 'ppa-purge' from the ppa-purge package can be used to remove software from a Launchpad PPA.

(I now note ROS packages....)

Revision history for this message
actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

If you comment all lines in all files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d then run the upgrade it'll help

Revision history for this message
Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#4

I see two problems:

1. "pkexec must be setuid root"
It seems that for whatever reason the security settings of the pkexec executable file have been tampered with. This most probably does not only prevent a release upgrade, but also several other processes.

What is the output of the command
ls -l `which pkexec`

2. The attachment in the bug report shows that the upgrader does not find a solution for breaks caused by packages named ros-kinetic-*.
According to https://answers.ros.org/question/297008/how-could-i-install-ros-on-ubuntu-18/?answer=297019#post-id-297019 they cannot be installed on Ubuntu 18.04 and apparently block the release upgrade.

I assume that you either have to uninstall these ros-* packages for the upgrade to work, or you have to stay on Ubuntu 16.04 if you want to keem them.

Revision history for this message
Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#5

Reading http://wiki.ros.org/melodic/Installation and http://wiki.ros.org/kinetic/Installation shows that for Ubuntu 18.04 you should install ROS Melodic Morenia instead of ROS Kinetic Kame for Ubuntu 16.04.

(Typo error: my previous post should end with "want to keep them.")

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