problems upgrading 14.04 to 14.10 (configuration failures in sysv-rc & grub packages)

[Adam Funk]

I tried to upgrade a machine remotely using 'sudo do-release-upgrade'
in screen.  That crapped out as follows:

#v+
Errors were encountered while processing:
 sysv-rc
 grub-common
 grub-pc-bin
 grub-pc
 grub2-common

Upgrade complete 

The upgrade has completed but there were errors during the upgrade 
process. 
#v-

I tried running it again with the same results, then 'sudo aptitude
update && sudo aptitude safe-upgrade', which ended up with this:

#v+
Unable to resolve dependencies for the upgrade because the resolver timed out.
  You may be able to solve this problem by increasing
  Aptitude::ProblemResolver::StepLimit (currently 500000).
Unable to safely resolve dependencies, try running with --full-resolver.
#v-

Fine, let's try 'sudo aptitude safe-upgrade --full-resolver'
... failed with this:

#v+
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install.  Trying to recover:
Setting up sysv-rc (2.88dsf-41ubuntu18) ...
info: Reordering boot system, log to /var/lib/insserv/run-20141104T1340.log
error: Something failed while migrating.

error: Unable to migrate to dependency based boot sequencing.

See http://wiki.debian.org/LSBInitScripts/DependencyBasedBoot for
more information about dependency based boot sequencing. To
reattempt the migration process run 'dpkg --configure sysv-rc'.

dpkg: error processing package sysv-rc (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up grub-common (2.02~beta2-15) ...
update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults
insserv: Script virtuoso-nepomuk is broken: missing end of LSB comment.
insserv: exiting now!
update-rc.d: error: insserv rejected the script header
dpkg: error processing package grub-common (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of grub-pc-bin:
 grub-pc-bin depends on grub-common (= 2.02~beta2-15); however:
  Package grub-common is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package grub-pc-bin (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of grub-pc:
 grub-pc depends on grub-common (= 2.02~beta2-15); however:
  Package grub-common is not configured yet.
 grub-pc depends on grub-pc-bin (= 2.02~beta2-15); however:
  Package grub-pc-bin is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package grub-pc (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of grub2-common:
 grub2-common depends on grub-common (= 2.02~beta2-15); however:
  Package grub-common is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package grub2-common (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 sysv-rc
 grub-common
 grub-pc-bin
 grub-pc
 grub2-common
#v-

What do I have to do now to get this thing upgraded?  Or will I have
to waste a day or two copying data off it & doing a fresh
installation?

Thanks,
Adam



PS: Thanks a lot, Canonical, for diverting effort into fooling around
with the GUIs.