Upgrade fail

[jerrywo]

The computer ran all night = this morning itt said "updates could not be installed automatically",

I'm left with a blinking command liie

any suggestions?

[yancek]

It would help others to help you if you posted the release version of Ubuntu you are using. Is it a currently supported version? Do you get any other warning or error messages? Did you make any effort to resolve the problem after doing an online search which produce a lot of results? It is often due to an incorrect or outdated sources.list file in the /etc/apt directory so you might also post the contents of that file to get help.

[jerrywo]

Ooops

I was attempting to upgrade from 22.04 to 24.04

Jerry

[yancek]

I was attempting to upgrade from 22.04 to 24.04

22.04 will be supported for nearly 3 more years so why are you updating? Just because you get an indication there is a new release available doesn't mean you need to do it? Are you having a problem with 22.04? Is there some software you want/need that is available on 24.04 that is not available on 22.04?

Are you able to use 22.04 now? Did you check the /etc/apt/sources.list file? If you don't know what to look for, you could post the contents here. I did a quick online search for your error earlier and this was the most common problem.

[jerrywo]

I'm loged into this forum using an old Dell Laptop that has Linux on it.

Gee, the pop-up came up and asked "an upgrade is available - would you like to install it?' - and i foolishly clicked on it. Silly me.

So I got a command line interface blinking at me. Is there anything i can input to complete this upgrade.,..,or am I left with down-loading and installing a new OS

Jerry

[Norm24]

Let me guess you went to bed and hoped it would just upgrade itself all on its own.Not much different than putting a roast in the oven falling asleep and when you wake up hoping it isn't overcooked.

Hopefully before you clicked upgrade you backed up at least your /home folder folder.Do a clean install if you did.

[grahammechanical]

If there is only one OS on this machine you will not see the boot menu (grub). It might be possible to access the Grub boot menu by pressing ESC (repeatedly) as the manufacturers splash screen is showing.

If you get the Grub menu select Advanced options for Ubuntu. And then select a Linux kernel with recovery mode.

At the recovery menu select Network to establish and Internet connection. When back at the recovery menu select Root shell prompt. At the command line enter

[code]apt update
apt upgrade]

This should update the OS. When the update/upgrade is finished type exit to get back to the recovery menu. Then select Resume to continue boot. Hopefully you will arrive at a desktop environment and the usual login screen. The system will be using an open source video driver so you might notice a difference. The reboot will load a proprietary video driver and hopefully the original problem will be fixed.

It is possible that you may need to run some more commands to complete the upgrade.

Regards

[TheFu]

Gee, the pop-up came up and asked "an upgrade is available - would you like to install it?' - and i foolishly clicked on it. Silly me.

You nailed it. Doing a major OS upgrade isn't a "1-click" choice. Basically, you were driving a car and the navigation ask you if you want to replace the car's engine now. You clicked "yes".

Steps need to be taken before allowing an OS upgrade. It is too bad that the question to upgrade seems so simple, but it really needs for you to make a full system backup BEFORE allowing it. Be 100% certain you can restore that backup to a workable system before moving forward OR be certain you are willing to address any issues which can include wiping the entire disk and loading a fresh OS.

It really is too bad they don't warn everyone. I don't even allow OS upgrade prompts to be displayed. Best to mark on my calendar when I need to upgrade to a newer release and ignore any hype. I want to get the longest hassle-free time from my OS installs. I stopped chasing "new" in the 1990s.

An empty black screen any mean all sorts of things - thousands of possible issues with many being hardware failures. So, it is next to impossible to suggest any actions without more data. For boot issues, the general recommendation is to boot from an Ubuntu ISO with the OS version you think is now installed, go into the Try Ubuntu mode, then install boot-repair and run it. In the center, bottom of the main page, there's a button to generate a report and upload it. Do that and post the URL back here for the boot-issue-gurus to see. I would strongly suggest that you do NOT let boot repair try to repair anything.

That's the best action you can take today, I believe.

24.04 changed some things that your specific hardware might not like much. There are prob

[jerrywo]

So i toggled may way thru the steps suggested by Graham. I'm still in the command line. I get;
Welome to Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS (GNU/Linux 6.8.0-44 generic X86_64)
Expanded security for maintenance is enabled

can I get it to launch from here?

Jerry

[jerrywo]

One more thing -this says i'm on tty1

Jerrry