[ubuntu] Hardy 8.04 update freezes on generating locales

[gwen]

I just attempted to update to Hardy 8.04 and everything went fine until the "Generating locales" portion, at which point the process froze. It displays this:

Generating locales...
en_AU.UTF-8...

And then it just sat there for more than an hour, at which point I decided to close the installer and try again. Same thing happened. I tried logging out, which froze before seeing the login screen. When I restarted and logged in again, it froze right afterwards. And when I say froze for all instances, mouse and keyboard inputs are not locked out, but it just sits there and does nothing, no matter what I do. I restarted again and went into recovery mode, trying to manually do dpkg, which does the same thing with hanging on "generating locales". No other apt-get commands are accepted, saying that dpkg was interrupted and must be run manually.

I tried searching for solutions for this, but found nothing useful that helped. Can anyone help get the system running again? I don't care about Hardy (and actually from what I read after encountering this problem, I don't really want to upgrade to it), I just want a usable system back. When I went into recovery mode, the only options for the kernel boot were 7.10, so I am assuming it hasn't upgraded yet, but I still can't boot.

[shichuan]

I am having exactly the same problem. anyone has a fix for this? if not, is there a way to restore the system? i have very important data in it. i can't afford to reformat.

[siberoptik]

Just had this problem myself. It seems to be to do with the latest Gutsy kernel version.

These steps worked for me:

1. Reboot your box, and press ESC to enter the GRUB menu
2. Select the previous version of the kernel xxx.14 rather than xxx.15 (sorry I can't recall the exact version numbers) - don't select the fail-safe mode.
3. Log-in as your admin user into recovery mode
4. Manually (re)start the upgrade via a terminal session: dpkg --configure -a

It should complete the install.

Good luck

[lou2261]

Hello everyone,
I am having the same exact problem. I went through the steps given by siberoptik (thanks by the way!). I went into recovery mode for xxx.14. I first tried the dpkg repair broken files. It seemed to finish. However resuming normal boot up then failed. I restarted again, went into recovery mode for xxx.14 again, selected the root option (sign in as root, or root terminal...something like that). I got a prompt. I tried the dpkg--configure -a. It was aborted.
Thanks in advance for any advice and suggestions.
lou

PS. The version 8.04 seems to have been installed. Now my only options for booting are 8.04. However, after signing nothing happens.

[Joeri Spitaels]

[This is a copy of my message on
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...er/+bug/202959
]

The steps taken by jdaviescoates worked partially for me too.
I didn't think of choosing a different kernel. As I was upgrading from
7.10 I just used the default 2.6.22.15 kernel.

The only way to stop the machine from hanging while generating those
resource files was a CTRL-ALT-DEL and then a hard press on the
hardreset button (sounds like Windows 98 doesn't it )

Next I rebooted into 2.6.22.15 recovery mode from grub. I chose to be
dropped into a root shell. There I could launch:

dpkg --configure -a

and afterwards

reboot

That got me to the Gnome logon screen. A normal logon from there would
hang though because of X not being configured completely apparently.
So after another hard reset I succesfully logged into a Gnome Failsafe
session (change the session at the logon screen).

From there I had to

sudo dpkg --configure -a

in a terminal once again which generated those resource files in less
than a second. The rest of the pending packages (including X and the
latest 2.6.24 kernel) installed smoothly as well.

HTH,
JSP

PS: While in the root recovery shell I experimented with setting the
locales package on hold as such:

echo locales hold | dpkg --set-selections

and auditing the unfinished packages with

dpkg -C

but that turned out to be unnecessary.

[mariourk]

Originally Posted by siberoptik Just had this problem myself. It seems to be to do with the latest Gutsy kernel version. These steps worked for me: Reboot your box, and press ESC to enter the GRUB menu Select the previous version of the kernel xxx.14 rather than xxx.15 (sorry I can't recall the exact version numbers) - don't select the fail-safe mode. Log-in as your admin user into recovery mode Manually (re)start the upgrade via a terminal session: dpkg --configure -a It should complete the install. Good luck

Worked for me. Thanks! Althoug I had to run [i]dpkg --configure -i[/u] a second time, after I rebooted my pc. Another erboot after that and all was ok.

[thirdmoth]

I have had exactly the same problem as described in this thread. The fixes proposed seemed, at first, to work fine. I managed to get dpkg --configure -a to complete its business, and now, upon repeating the command, it does nothing. However, neither xdm, gdm, or kdm will work. xdm and kdm will allow me to login, but after this the login window goes away and the system sits there doing nothing while displaying the background graphic. gdm does not even get to the login screen, simply sitting there with the spinning cursor, which pauses every few seconds as the screen flashes once, this process continuing indefinitely.

I am not sure if this is a problem with the X configuration or not. I can start in recovery mode and run the xfix tool, but this has no effect, nor does replacing /etc/X11/xorg.conf with a backup copy have any effect. I am not an expert on X11 configuration. Short of trying to completely remove X11 and reinstall it from the shell, I am at a complete loss. I have never had a problem like this before.

Any suggestions?

Thank you.

[navigation_uk]

Okay I've definitely got the same problem going on...but I've been using Linux for about three days now and half of what you said above makes pretty much no sense. If I cancel and reboot can i carry on using ubuntu 7.whatever or have a got to regroup some brain cells and do more than click on a button? Any help would be lush

[navigation_uk]

Okay top advice to those that have been using ubuntu for three days is that the windows reboot to sort it out does not work. Top advice to those that have been using ubuntu for three days and couldn't care less if they lose what is on the partion then wait till the problems sorted and install from your cd or whatever again then do the upgrade. In the mean time use windows which still plays all your music and video, and even streams on the internet.

[cuteboi]

I went with the kill -9 method of stopping the locales from being generated, after finishing the updates, I ran the recovery app with the x.14 kernel, and it finished configuring the locales on its own, no other problems have come up.