Can't start upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.0x because of "no development version of an LTS available" error

[robw]

Hi all,

When following this process to upgrade Ubuntu 20.04 to a newer version, we can't start the upgrade because of this error:

: sudo do-release-upgrade -d
There is no development version of an LTS available.
To upgrade to the latest non-LTS development release
set Prompt=normal in /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades

The apt update and apt upgrade steps completed smoothly.

Note for anyone who reads the whole forum: This is not the same server where I had a problem with the dashboard after the Ubuntu 20.04 upgrade. This server has had Ubuntu 20 from the beginning, with Cloudron installed on a fresh O/S and nothing else has ever run on it.

[robi]

Is that caused by the -d parameter?

[robw]

Are you asking me? I don't know, but that is the parameter that the upgrade guide specifies to use. I'm hesitant to attempt an upgrade with an Ubuntu version not directly supported by the Cloudron documentation.

That said, I did run an 18.04 -> 20.04 upgrade on a different server and those docs did not include the -d parameter.

[robw]

It does seem strange for the docs to be asking to upgrade to the development channel.

[robi]

Try it without?

[robw]

I might see if I can get an official comment from the support team first... Ad hoc experimentation with live servers that diverges from official documentation isn't really something we can do.

I love Cloudron's close coupling with the public facing DNS and abstraction of it into a point-and-click GUI, because it makes day to day operation very smooth and easy. It just works, which is the beauty of the whole platform. But it does mean we can't simply clone the server to create a fully loaded sandbox for experimentation with real configuration data. Well, not unless we want to either turn the production server off while we're experimenting (not really an option), or configure a separate set of DNS entries and reconfigure the clone, by which time it's already a lot of work and it's arguably custom enough that it's not a reliable experiment for things like this anyway. (By the way, we'd like to set up cloned test environments for each CR server we run, but we're not resourced for that yet.)

We could spin up a new Cloudron on this version and play with that, Cloudron is also great for that because it's so easy and open and free. But that's not really a proper test for this case either. If the support team want that -d option for future compatibility of some kind, all I proved with my test is that I can break my server in the future without knowing about it now by not following the documentation.

So if we need to proceed without a proper test environment, ideally I'd like to do it according to the documentation and formal support advice or at least someone else's experience with logic to back it up.

Thanks for the suggestion though, appreciate it. It just triggered a few thoughts that I typed out.

[scooke]

You ran the previous 3 commands, too?

# dpkg --configure -a
# apt update
# apt upgrade

Seeing as the current install instruction says to start with Ubuntu 22.04, removing the -d IS following the official docs. Leaving the -d will get you the development version.

I was surprised that Cloudron would even try to help users upgrade OS versions, as I thought this was typically not recommended on production machines. Is this because a working Cloudron on, say 18.04, won't seamlessly restore to a fresh 20.04 server, so Cloudron decided it's better to help their users than to leave them floundering?

This has an interesting bit about the -d. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1412543/how-does-exactly-do-release-upgrade-d-work#:~:text=The command do-release-upgrade,version of an LTS available. .

[robi]

@robw No worries, sometimes the docs have typos and need improvements.

Either way, it's not a harmful test.

@girish usually deals with the installer, so he can chime in on this too.

[girish]

@scooke said in Can't start upgrade from Ubuntu 20.04 to Ubuntu 22.0x because of "no development version of an LTS available" error:

This has an interesting bit about the -d. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1412543/how-does-exactly-do-release-upgrade-d-work#:~:text=The command do-release-upgrade,version of an LTS available. .

wow, great link.

@robw I have fixed the guide to remove the -d flag. Thanks for reporting.