[DC LoCo] thoughts on recovering from power off during distro upgrade?

[Frank J. Gómez]

Thanks for the advice.  I booted up the machine this morning and it wouldn't
get all the way to the desktop environment, but I was able to switch to
another console and log into the CLI.

Once there I ran sudo dpkg --configure -a, responded to a few prompts, and
watched the packages do their thing.  Afterwards, I ran do-release-upgrade for
good measure.  It told me it had nothing to do.

I followed that up with a reboot, and it seems the boot gets stuck in the
same place as before I ran the above-mentioned commands.  The last line on
my screen is:

* Starting TiMidity++ ALSA midi emulation... [OK]

(Ah yes, I did install UbuntuStudio at some point, didn't I...)

After that it just hangs.  I can still switch to another console, but a
normal boot would be nice.  I'm not sure what the problem is, or which log
to check for hints (syslog, maybe?).  Do y'all think this is salvageable, or
should I just restore my pre-upgrade images and try again?

Thanks so much!
-Frank

On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:39 AM, Eric Maag <eric.maag at gmail.com> wrote:

> God,
>
> Had I know all this a while back. FML
>
>
> Eric
> 2011/10/18 Stephen Nichols <ChinnoDog at lonesheep.net>:
> > The packages are transactional. If it breaks halfway through then apt can
> > roll it back. If you can boot up successfully then you can probably
> resume
> > the upgrade without an issue. (Run do-release-upgrade from the command
> line
> > if unsure how to launch it.)  If a package is broken you will probably
> get a
> > message that includes the fix.  If you can't boot anymore then all is not
> > lost though. You can boot from the installation media, fsck your hard
> disk
> > if necessary, and chroot to your hard disk before restarting the upgrade.
> >
> > 2011/10/18 Frank J. Gómez <frank at crop-circle.net>
> >>
> >> Hello,
> >> I was upgrading a laptop from Ubuntu 11.04 to 11.10 when my cat made
> >> himself a seat on the keyboard.  (I was away from the machine.)  This
> >> laptop's unfortunate instinct when tons of keys are pressed is to power
> off.
> >>  By the time this occurred, all required packages had been downloaded
> and
> >> installation of packages was underway.
> >> I don't have the laptop with me just now, but I'm uncertain of what to
> do
> >> when I look at it again tonight or tomorrow.  I suppose I could just
> boot up
> >> and see what happens -- perhaps the upgrader is smart enough to know
> that
> >> smart went crazy last time around and will make helpful suggestions.  Or
> >> perhaps there's a dpkg command I can run that will take all uninstalled
> >> packages on the machine and install them; that doesn't seem out of the
> >> question... but what about the package that was in process of being
> >> installed when the power off occurred?  Lost cause?
> >> Thanks for your input!
> >> -Frank
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