Can't upgrade dapper to hardy

There is a
  There is also a vibrant support community available at http://askubuntu.com and you might consider asking your question there.

Uhoh, sorry, my comment has been shorten.

There is a way to upgrade which is documented there https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades but in your case both the source and and target releases are EOL that makes things a little bit harder.

If the recommended way in the documentation doesn't work, you can apply latest updates to dapper from the old-releases archive, then point your sources.list to hardy, update and dist-upgrade.

Be very careful to what is installed/removed when doing it this way, because the release upgrader won't take care of very specific upgrade paths doing it this way.

And
There is also a vibrant support community available at http://askubuntu.com and you might consider asking your question there. :)

I'm converting this report to a question where you'll be able to get support from there.

The way to upgrade documented at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades produces an error because during the upgrade process the script rewites /etc/apt/sources.list.d/prerequists-sources.dapper.list by adding a link to archive.ubuntu.com instead of old-releases.ubuntu.com and tries to fetch a file from there which is no longer there. I have not tried your alternative method.

2011-07-26 18:23:36,519 INFO release-upgrader version '0.87.31' started
2011-07-26 18:23:36,523 DEBUG Using 'DistUpgradeViewText' view
2011-07-26 18:23:36,584 DEBUG enable dpkg --force-overwrite
2011-07-26 18:23:36,645 DEBUG lsb-release: 'dapper'
2011-07-26 18:23:36,645 DEBUG _pythonSymlinkCheck run
2011-07-26 18:23:37,139 DEBUG checkViewDepends()
2011-07-26 18:23:37,139 DEBUG need backports
2011-07-26 18:23:37,139 DEBUG getRequiredBackports()
2011-07-26 18:23:37,139 DEBUG writing prereuists sources.list at: '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/prerequists-sources.dapper.list'
2011-07-26 18:23:37,185 DEBUG adding '# sources.list fragment for pre-requists (mirror from sources.list + fallback)
' prerequists
2011-07-26 18:23:37,185 DEBUG adding '# this is safe to remove after the upgrade
' prerequists
2011-07-26 18:23:37,185 DEBUG adding '
' prerequists
2011-07-26 18:23:37,186 DEBUG adding 'deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main/debian-installer
' prerequists
2011-07-26 18:23:37,186 DEBUG running doUpdate() (showErrors=False)
2011-07-26 18:23:39,177 ERROR IOError/SystemError in cache.update(): 'Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dis...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
'. Retrying (currentRetry: 0)
2011-07-26 18:23:40,572 ERROR IOError/SystemError in cache.update(): 'Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dis...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.170 80]
'. Retrying (currentRetry: 1)
2011-07-26 18:23:41,818 ERROR IOError/SystemError in cache.update(): 'Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dis...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.171 80]
'. Retrying (currentRetry: 2)
2011-07-26 18:23:41,819 ERROR doUpdate() failed completely
2011-07-26 18:23:43,621 ERROR Can not find backport 'release-upgrader-apt'
2011-07-26 18:23:43,622 DEBUG writing prereuists sources.list at: '/etc/apt/sources.list.d/prerequists-sources.dapper.list'
2011-07-26 18:23:43,663 DEBUG adding '# sources.list fragment for pre-requists (mirror from sources.list + fallback)
' prerequists
2011-07-26 18:23:43,663 DEBUG adding '# this is safe to remove after the upgrade
' prerequists
2011-07-26 18:23:43,663 DEBUG adding 'deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-backports main/debian-installer
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-backports main/debian-installer
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-backports main/debian-installer
deb http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ dapper-backports main/debian-installer
' prerequists
2011-07-26 18:23:43,664 DEBUG adding 'deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu dapper-backports main/debian-installer
' prerequists
2011-07-26 18:23:43,664 DEBUG running doUpdate() (showErrors=False)
2011-07-26 18:23:45,061 ERROR IOError/SystemError in cache.update(): 'Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dis...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.45 80]
'. Retrying (currentRetry: 0)
2011-07-26 18:23:46,462 ERROR IOError/SystemError in cache.update(): 'Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dis...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
'. Retrying (currentRetry: 1)
2011-07-26 18:23:47,866 ERROR IOError/SystemError in cache.update(): 'Failed to fetch http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dis...86/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.92.169 80]
'. Retrying (currentRetry: 2)
2011-07-26 18:23:47,866 ERROR doUpdate() failed completely

The URL in the previous post's log file that got shortened and returns a 404 error is below:

http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/dapper-backports/main/debian-installer/binary-i386/Packages.gz

I think it was moved to:

http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/dapper-backports/main/debian-installer/binary-i386/Packages.gz

Does this really mean CANONICAL has locked out every user of 6.06 LTS from upgrading to 8.04 LTS ?!?

Theoretically, one could futz with local DNS server to make archive.ubuntu point instead to old-releases.ubuntu, with both running on a local machine. They've really made a mess by moving the files. What is the purpose of moving the files? St00pid St00pid

Also, askubuntu is not vibrant support, it's a mass of idiotic questions that are all unrelated to this issue.

I think it is the upgrade manager package that causes this error, it was fixed in more recent versions but the most recent version available for dapper 6.06 LTS was not fixed.

I am still suffering form this bug. I cannot upgrade my dist via upgrade manager. the required packages have moved. I try to update my package list every once in a while to see if anyone has been working on this.. but so far nothing.

Next I tried scanning through the script to see if the repository was hard-linked in there, but I'm not really too pro at debugging python... i couldn't find it. While doing that i tried to see if the script took any arguments... maybe perhaps an alternate repository url argument... but again, I'm not pro enough yet.

doing some local DNS gymnastics just to make a dummy prerequisite list seems a little bit over the top for this problem... I'm sure there's an easier fix...

I'm going to keep scanning the script.... hopefully I'll find something.

Someone who developed this should help us out.. please.

Jonathan, you might try checking post 54-56 of following thread:

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+question/62184

It is for different versions but I think the same problem. I have not tried what they mention but it looks like they modifed the upgrade script to pause during the upgrade so you can go edit the files to contain the correct information before resuming.

Thanks for that john! #56 for the win. That guy says he did it for dapper to hardy.

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+question/62184

Your welcome, hope it works for you. I plan to soon give it a try as well.

alright! I just tried that fix and I am happy to confirm, that this BUG IS NO MORE! (at least for me)

Follow this link:

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+question/62184

#54-56

Here's a few things to keep in mind when updating, using this fix:

1. The do-release-upgrade script creates a new /tmp/tmpXXXXX/ directory every time you run the script. If you've run the script before, don't edit files in an old tmp dir. I did that the first time XP.

2. Don't worry about prerequists-sources.list. I noticed that this file was generated with a feisty repository in there... and I'm doing a dapper to hardy upgrade... so... that file is useless.

3. The files that you need to edit are /tmp/tmpxxxxxx/prerequists-sources.dapper.list and also /etc/apt/sources.list.d/prerequists-sources.list. In those two files, just make sure there is NOTHING that has the "us.archive" or the "archive" prefix. All that stuff should be commented out or replaced with "old-releases."

That's it. good luck everyone!

sorry typo: second file is /etc/apt/sources.list.d/prerequists-sources.dapper.list (see the error log post #3)

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