21 packages held back and not upgraded?

[TWPonKubuntu]

I got the same message this morning... I'll wait and see what may be resolved.

The following packages have been kept back:
base-files libc-bin libc-dev-bin libc-devtools libc6 libc6-dbg libc6-dev libgstreamer1.0-0 libspeechd2 locales python3-distupgrade python3-gi python3-gi-cairo ubuntu-release-upgrader-core
ubuntu-release-upgrader-qt

[claydoh]

Phased updates (https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/phase...in-21-04/20345 and https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PhasedUpdates) is probably the reason. You can see the "progress" with, for example, apt policy locales or apt policy libc6 or some other affected package.

$ apt policy locales
locales:
Installed: 2.35-0ubuntu3
Candidate: 2.35-0ubuntu3.1
Version table:
2.35-0ubuntu3.1 500 (phased 70%)
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main amd64 Packages
*** 2.35-0ubuntu3 500
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
••• ~ $

For me, it was 50% about 8 hours ago,

holy cow, somehow I completely forgot about that feature added to Apt by Debian, and being implemented in Ubuntu, starting back in 21.04.
And this page showing which packages are phased: https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu...d-updates.html

[chimak111]

... And this page showing which packages are phased: https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu...d-updates.html

That's a neat link and the contents are rapidly updated!

I moved from 20.04 to 22.04 on April 19 and I got to experience my first ever "kept back" on July 29:

6 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
language-pack-en-base
The following packages will be upgraded:
gstreamer1.0-plugins-good libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-0 libtirpc-common libtirpc-dev libtirpc3
5 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
3 standard security updates
Need to get 2,321 kB of archives.
After this operation, 10.2 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.

Apparently, there are ways to avoid phased updates but I'll keep them on and

• refer to the phased updates link and
• check the apt policy <pkg> output if need be. I think the link lists just the primary package and not its dependencies.

[Bings]

I'm down to only "base-files" being held back. It says phased at 70%. So the answer is do nothing and wait. One of my favourite solutions.

[claydoh]

If one searches the web, this can be overridden. But since there is a reason for doing this, and the number of packages is rather small, and not security-related as far as I can tell, waiting a spell is not so bad. I'd rather not have a libc6 update break things, tbh.

The problem here is more psychological than physical. Knowing that there is an update that you can't get right now, versus it being hidden away (via -Proposed, for example).