[Bug 1807043] Re: when rewriting sources.list ubuntu-release-upgrader doesn't check to see if new release is available

[Łukasz Zemczak]

Hello Brian, or anyone else affected,

Accepted ubuntu-release-upgrader into bionic-proposed. The package will
build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source
/ubuntu-release-upgrader/1:18.04.30 in a few hours, and then in the
-proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package.  See
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how
to enable and use -proposed.  Your feedback will aid us getting this
update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug,
mentioning the version of the package you tested and change the tag from
verification-needed-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not
fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the
tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of
your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification .  Thank you in
advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s)
fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in
-proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

** Changed in: ubuntu-release-upgrader (Ubuntu Bionic)
       Status: Triaged => Fix Committed

** Tags removed: verification-done
** Tags added: verification-needed verification-needed-bionic

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1807043

Title:
  when rewriting sources.list ubuntu-release-upgrader doesn't check to
  see if new release is available

Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader source package in Bionic:
  Fix Committed
Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader source package in Cosmic:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  [Impact]
  When rewriting sources.list entries the release-upgrader doesn't check to see if the distribution to which the system is being upgraded is supported by the archive / PPA. This results in the following error message:

  A problem occurred during the update. This is usually some sort of
  network problem, please check your network connection and retry.

  E:The repository 'http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu
  cosmic Release' does not have a Release file.

  If the release-upgrader were to actually check if the release were
  supported then that specific sources entry could be disabled and the
  upgrade may be able to proceed.

  [Test Case]
  The test case involves adding a PPA which doesn't have a release file for the release to which you are upgrading for upgrading to cosmic we can use the team-xbmc ppa.

  1) sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/ppa
  2) do-release-upgrade --frontend DistUpgradeViewText
  3) Observe the error message re "does not have a Release file" and the upgrade cancel.

  With the version of the release upgrader from -proposed you will
  instead see the following message: "Some third party entries in your
  sources.list were disabled.". Then the release upgrade will proceed to
  the calculation phase, you can quit the upgrade after the calculation
  and check /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log for the following:

  DEBUG entry '# deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu
  bionic main' was disabled (no Release file)

  [Regression Potential]
  It seems like an oversight that this part of the release-upgrader never did check for Release files and that this is the right thing to do. Its possible that people who were not allowed to upgrade, because they had PPAs without support for the release to which they wanted to upgrade, are now allowed to upgrade and somehow run in to an upgrade failure e.g. a failure to calculate the upgrade. That seems better and more informative than not allowing them to upgrade at all though.

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