I think I received a notification to upgrade a few weeks ago but didn't want to do it at the time. Now I am ready but my system doesn't show an update available anymore. I've tried "apt update/upgrade" and do-release-upgrade and "apt dist-upgrade". None of which show any available upgrades. I accept that I could have caused the problem but cannot find a way to trigger the upgrade. Can anyone offer some suggestions?

You'd be better off to do a clean fresh install, as you'd get a much better result. Even though I was able to upgrade all my computers, I ended up reformatting one computer and saw a big difference. Then I ended up reformatting all of my computers, and it was worth it in my opinion!

I agree it is always worthwhile doing a fresh install.

Agreed but I'm going to take my chances. I'm backed up. Any tips have to trigger the upgrade?

joemo wrote:Agreed but I'm going to take my chances. I'm backed up. Any tips have to trigger the upgrade?

You can try opening konsole and running the command do-release-upgrade. If it works you will be prompted for your password to run the update.

Hello. I tried to run the do-release-upgrade command and get the error:

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Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/do-release-upgrade", line 135, in <module>
    "%(url)s\n") % { 'url' : url })
ValueError: unsupported format character '?' (0xa) at index 55


What can you do about it?

Amadeus_Rush wrote:What can you do about it?

I commented out the lines to check for support for this version and it worked.

dbergstein wrote:

joemo wrote:Agreed but I'm going to take my chances. I'm backed up. Any tips have to trigger the upgrade?

You can try opening konsole and running the command do-release-upgrade. If it works you will be prompted for your password to run the update.

Right but per my original post I tried that and it doesn't find a new release.

I followed the instructions here and it's working...
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1028949 ... 04-upgrade

Why I had to do it this way I don't know.

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If you've selected the traditional Debian path, you're going to need to change the /etc/apt/sources.list file and replace the name of your previous release with bionic. So, if you're on 16.04, replace every instance of xenial with bionic. If you currently have 17.10, replace artful with bionic.

    This process can be automated by using the following sed command:

    $ sudo sed -i 's/xenial/bionic/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

    Then, look in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/. Change any files in there the same way. If you end up getting an error when you try to update Ubuntu, use artful until those repositories are updated.

    Now, you can run the Ubuntu dist upgrade. First, update the Apt sources. Then, run the Ubuntu upgrade.

    $ sudo apt update && sudo apt -y dist-upgrade

    The upgrade should take a bit of time. Chances are, every package on the system will be upgraded. When the Ubuntu upgrade does finish, reboot the system. When the system comes back up, you'll be running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Bionic Beaver!

Workaround: when UPGRADE button doesn't work, due to software from lesser-known sources

I have several very inexpensive Asus laptop PC's running both Neon KDE and Android-x86 (flawlessly, except that a mouse has to be used, rather than the pad, and that only laptop-inbuilt-mic work even if headphones are plugged in), and they work wonderfully well. I have recently updated from the Neon KDE 5.14 version that builds on Ubuntu 16 to Ubuntu 18. In this process, I encountered a problem that I found a solution to.

The problem seems to arise because I have a lot of things installed, including software that is a little outside the normal software channels (direct installations, or software reposities that aren't official).

For instance, I love the use of SIP phones, and have the technically most superior form of SIP software, in my opinion, installed (Blink, from Ag-projects). But just this package seemed to prevent the Upgrade button to work, even if I uninstalled it. As I wondered whether I had the patience to manually go in and deselect everything that could prevent the upgrade, or whether I would have to reinstall the entire (double) OS, I did the following in Terminal, and it cured it. This may have no impact on the exact questions raised in this thread, however it may be that someone who has a related problem to the questions in this thread will find this solution working for them:

STEP 1. Make OS as up to date without first updating to new Ubuntu core, but do it via Konsole:

Be prepared to answer with your normal password after the first line.

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sudo -i
apt update
apt upgrade
exit

Essential point: When the upgrade command runs, be prepared to confirm Yes/No questions by 'y'. Further, be prepared to confirm OK buttons (ie, inside the Konsole) by a press on SPACE-BAR (possibly use of tabulator and shift-tabulator to navigate to the button first). This will turn off any lesser-known third-party software source, but it will tell you how it can be re-enabled.

STEP 2. Reboot.

STEP 3. Click on the Upgrade button when it appears. It is then much more likely to work flawlessly.

Good luck!