release upgrade fails, baloo-kf5 dependency problem

[jlittle]

Having stayed away for as long as possible, I tried to upgrade from Utopic to Vivid last night.

Errors were encountered while processing:
 kubuntu-desktop
Error in function: 

SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Error in sys.excepthook:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 102, in apport_excepthook
    pr.add_proc_info(extraenv=['PYTHONPATH', 'PYTHONHOME'])
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 521, in add_proc_info
    raise ValueError('%s does not exist' % self['ExecutablePath'])
ValueError: /usr/bin/python3.4 (deleted) does not exist

Original exception was:
SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Could not install the upgrades 

The upgrade has aborted. Your system could be in an unusable state. A 
recovery will run now (dpkg --configure -a). 

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of kubuntu-desktop:
 kubuntu-desktop depends on baloo-kf5; however:
  Package baloo-kf5 is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package kubuntu-desktop (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 kubuntu-desktop

/usr/bin/python3.4 does exist, and appears to run.
Now apt-get reports unmet dependencies for kubuntu-desktop:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 baloo : Depends: baloo4 but it is not going to be installed
 kubuntu-desktop : Depends: baloo-kf5 but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

apt-get -f wants to remove kubuntu-desktop, and I assume that's not a good idea. Any suggestions?

[ronw]

kubuntu-desktop is just a meta package to easily install a bunch of stuff with one command. I remove it after every new install. If that's all apt-get wants to remove it *should* be safe.

[claydoh]

try

sudo dpkg --configure -a
to attempt to run the config script again, plus the others that did not run after the one that failed.

Then sudo apt-get -f install

It is a dependency problem, but one caused by a package that is there but not fully installed yet, due to the first error you got.


I've seen similar bug reports on this, but supposedly fixed by an update to the upgrade tool, which should have been fixed by a normal update before you ran it.

[jlittle]

Well, I restarted, and after typing my password the KDE start up stalls with the blue bar at about 42 mm out of about 62 mm. I'm typing this from an old Saucy install.

Starting using upstart gives the same result. Starting "recovery" and running the dpkg option crashed with python errors that scrolled off the screen. Running dpkg at the root prompt reported held broken packages, which I eventually got past by apt-get install -f baloo-kf5. Now dpkg is happy (in that sudo dpkg --configure -a reports nothing, and the dpkg option on the recovery menu says there's nothing to do) but starting KDE still stalls during login. I suspect the baloo install problem has nothing to do with the failed login.

I'll attempt a fresh install of Vivid, after downloading the ISO, to another partition. Thanks for the replies.

[jlittle]

Not looking good for me and Kubuntu 15.04... Running "Try Kubuntu" from a USB stick with gives an unusable desktop, the contents of the panel or windows or menus don't display (except for the hamburger menu at top left). The installer windows mostly displayed, and those that didn't I could get by because drop-down menus did display, and my familiarity with the installer got me by. But it booted to the same unusable desktop that "Try Kubuntu" gave.

Knowing that previous versions of Kubuntu have needed the Nvidia driver to work well on my computer, I pressed Ctrl-Alt-F1, logged on and ran
sudo apt-get install nvidia-304. That seemed to do a lot of work, but now I'm searching kubuntuforums.net for "Vivid black screen".

[claydoh]

alt-f2 (if that works - should - if plasma simply crashed)
and enter plasmashell, which should run the desktop.

If that no workee, try fixing a possible permissions problem with a kde cache file that can prevent plasma from loading

sudo chown yourusername:yourusername ~/.cache/ksycoca5

[claydoh]

Also check if the driver manager recommends the 340 or 346 driver - might work better than the 304, depending on the card.

[jlittle]

alt-f2 (if that works - should - if plasma simply crashed)
and enter plasmashell, which should run the desktop.

I tried alt-f2 with the unusable desktop, nothing happened. I'll try again at the black screen.

If that no workee, try fixing a possible permissions problem with a kde cache file that can prevent plasma from loading
sudo chown yourusername:yourusername ~/.cache/ksycoca5

I'll check that, but unless it installs with the wrong permissions, that won't be it. I'm not sharing /home with any other installs.

[claydoh]

I tried alt-f2 with the unusable desktop, nothing happened. I'll try again at the black screen.

I'll check that, but unless it installs with the wrong permissions, that won't be it. I'm not sharing /home with any other installs.

It is a common bug that has caused the blank screen for many after a fresh install. (I was savin' ya the search time)

[jlittle]

Sanity has returned a bit, I'm glad to report. When I started the computer from the USB, the first time I've ever done this, all it showed at first was a little picture at the bottom of the screen showing a rectangle on the left, an equal sign, and a stick figure in a circle* on the right. After some time, a couple of minutes, the live kubuntu system booted and showed the "Try" or "Install" choice. The install was doomed already, even though the screen is displayed at the monitor's correct resolution, because on this computer if the installer runs without nomodeset it poisons something and even if the OS is booted with nomodeset and the Nvidia driver is installed and properly set up with DKMS, it doesn't recover. It was only that I booted my wife's laptop with the USB stick and saw the "Start Kubuntu", "Check disk for defects", et cetera menu that I realised I could get that menu and press F6 and turn on "nomodeset" at that point. Kubuntu installs using VGA resolution, but will work, then I can run the driver manager to get the Nvidia 304 driver.

Of course, the way was not smooth, I struck another Ubiquity bug where it hangs creating the ext4 file system, completely unrelated to my other trouble. Fortunately google worked on the laptop, and I found the bug report, and a workaround (one has to "shred" and format the partition outside of ubiquity).

Now I'm running plasma 5, and it was unusable until I changed some theme to Oxygen; items in the panel were showing white on white. I think I'll be happier going back to 14.04 and qtcurve.

*What does this little picture mean? Maybe the rectangle is a keyboard, but I'm otherwise stumped. I think one has to press space, and I was pressing enter. If you press anything before space, it goes into an input queue (it starts beeping faintly when the queue is full) and space doesn't work. PoS.

[jlittle]

After getting a fresh install to run, and dismayed by the work needed to get back the environment I like (in as much as that might be possible), I investigated the borked install (upgraded from utopic).

A new user (sudo adduser) has the same login problem, so no amount of renaming .config and so on is likely to matter.

Then I found from the linux console that the kwin_x11 process was hung at 100%. Googling, I found https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=348753, which applies just to my on-board graphics chip, an Nvidia nForce 630a.
There is a workaround, setting export KWIN_EXPLICIT_SYNC=0 in .config/plasma-workspace/env/kwin_env.sh works on my system. However, a poster says that this workaround has stopped working on upgrading to plasma 5.3.

Now my dismay is less, but I still have to do a lot to get things tolerable. My favourite desktop effect, invert window, has gone. There's no Qtcurve widget style, with its 150 or so settings.