I have a DELL laptop and I have upgraded Ubuntu on this machine without issue until now. I have tried several times to upgrade from 18.04 to 18.10 and I've tried some of the recommendations on this site to try and get it installed, but it always fails. I tried from Terminal and got more detail on the attempted upgrade when it failed which I have pasted below. Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong or could do to fix this? Thanks.
do-release-upgrade
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
Get:1 Upgrade tool signature [819 B]
Get:2 Upgrade tool [1,255 kB]
Fetched 1,256 kB in 0s (0 B/s)
authenticate 'cosmic.tar.gz' against 'cosmic.tar.gz.gpg'
extracting 'cosmic.tar.gz'
[sudo] password for steve:
Reading cache
Checking package manager
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Hit ie.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Ign dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease
Hit ppa.launchpad.net/gencfsm/ppa/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Get:1 dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release [943 B]
Get:2 dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release.gpg [819 B]
Hit ppa.launchpad.net/klaus-vormweg/pan/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit ppa.launchpad.net/morphis/anbox-support/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Get:3 ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu bionic InRelease [20.8 kB]
Hit ppa.launchpad.net/ozmartian/apps/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Get:4 ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu bionic/main i386 Packages [43.6 kB]
Get:5 ppa.launchpad.net/ondrej/php/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages [43.6 kB]
Fetched 109 kB in 0s (0 B/s)
(appstreamcli:15338): GLib-CRITICAL **: 14:05:45.946: g_variant_builder_end: assertion '!GVSB(builder)->uniform_item_types || GVSB(builder)->prev_item_type != NULL || g_variant_type_is_definite (GVSB(builder)->type)' failed
(appstreamcli:15338): GLib-CRITICAL **: 14:05:45.947: g_variant_new_variant: assertion 'value != NULL' failed
(appstreamcli:15338): GLib-ERROR **: 14:05:45.947: g_variant_new_parsed: 11-13:invalid GVariant format string
Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Updating repository information
Third party sources disabled
Some third party entries in your sources.list were disabled. You can
re-enable them after the upgrade with the 'software-properties' tool
or your package manager.
To continue please press [ENTER]
Hit http://ie.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu cosmic InRelease
Fetched 0 B in 0s (0 B/s)
(appstreamcli:15614): GLib-CRITICAL **: 14:06:55.537: g_variant_builder_end: assertion '!GVSB(builder)->uniform_item_types || GVSB(builder)->prev_item_type != NULL || g_variant_type_is_definite (GVSB(builder)->type)' failed
(appstreamcli:15614): GLib-CRITICAL **: 14:06:55.538: g_variant_new_variant: assertion 'value != NULL' failed
(appstreamcli:15614): GLib-ERROR **: 14:06:55.538: g_variant_new_parsed: 11-13:invalid GVariant format string
Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped)
Hit http://ie.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu cosmic InRelease
Fetched 0 B in 0s (0 B/s)
(appstreamcli:15829): GLib-CRITICAL **: 14:07:05.466: g_variant_builder_end: assertion '!GVSB(builder)->uniform_item_types || GVSB(builder)->prev_item_type != NULL || g_variant_type_is_definite (GVSB(builder)->type)' failed
(appstreamcli:15829): GLib-CRITICAL **: 14:07:05.466: g_variant_new_variant: assertion 'value != NULL' failed
(appstreamcli:15829): GLib-ERROR **: 14:07:05.466: g_variant_new_parsed: 11-13:invalid GVariant format string
Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped)
Hit http://ie.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu cosmic InRelease
Fetched 0 B in 0s (0 B/s)
(appstreamcli:16059): GLib-CRITICAL **: 14:07:13.383: g_variant_builder_end: assertion '!GVSB(builder)->uniform_item_types || GVSB(builder)->prev_item_type != NULL || g_variant_type_is_definite (GVSB(builder)->type)' failed
(appstreamcli:16059): GLib-CRITICAL **: 14:07:13.383: g_variant_new_variant: assertion 'value != NULL' failed
(appstreamcli:16059): GLib-ERROR **: 14:07:13.383: g_variant_new_parsed: 11-13:invalid GVariant format string
Trace/breakpoint trap (core dumped)
Error during update
A problem occurred during the update. This is usually some sort of
network problem, please check your network connection and retry.
E:Problem executing scripts APT::Update::Post-Invoke-Success 'if
/usr/bin/test -w /var/cache/app-info -a -e /usr/bin/appstreamcli;
then appstreamcli refresh-cache > /dev/null; fi', E:Sub-process
returned an error code
Restoring original system state
Aborting
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Tried the update through the Distribution Upgrade popup which appeared onscreen. It also failed with the following message:
Error during update
A problem occurred during the update. This is usually some sort of network problem, please check your network connection and retry.
E:Problem executing scripts APT::Update::Post-Invoke-Success 'if /usr/bin/test -w /var/cache/app-info -a -e /usr/bin/appstreamcli; then appstreamcli refresh-cache > /dev/null; fi', E:Sub-process returned an error code.
I'm just thinking - if a couple of people have mentioned my internet connection was running, which it was, or if I was using a proxy, which I'm not and the latest try at upgrade showed that there may be a connection issue, could the laptopwifi adapter be getting switched off as it tries to update?
Fetched 0 B in 0s (0 B/s), please also tell us, what command you were running. – d1bro Nov 30 '18 at 13:03