Vanessa Upgrade Hangs On Strange Byte

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shneor
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Vanessa Upgrade Hangs On Strange Byte

Post by shneor »

Last week I installed Linux 20.0 on a new Chuwi Herobook Air laptop. Easy install from a DVD. I upgraded to 20.3 very easily. The next day, Vanessa was announced.
There is one glitch in the current install. When I request System Reports, I get the following error message:
'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xa0 in position 222: invalid start byte
and no system information shows up.
When I tried to upgrade to Vanessa (after an easy upgrade on another laptop) the upgrade hung on system verification. I literally let it run all night, to no avail. I believe the two instances are connected.
I should also note that on boot there seem to be about 12 error messages showing up before the login screen, which disappear too quickly to read.
I'd appreciate any suggestions to solve this.

Thank you.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Feb 15, 2023 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
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spamegg
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Re: Vanessa Upgrade Hangs On Strange Byte

Post by spamegg »

Hello shneor welcome to the Forum.
Please share your system info by entering the command inxi -Fxxxmprz into a Terminal and posting its output here.
Image

The error looks like a Python error. System Reports uses Python, so it makes sense. If possible, provide us the full traceback of that error. Try launching System Reports from the Terminal with mintreport and post the error messages. Maybe something went wrong with the Python versions during the upgrade? (20.3 has Python 3.8, 21 has Python 3.10.)

To see the error messages that pass too quickly, you can use dmesg --level=err. Post those here as well.
shneor
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Re: Vanessa Upgrade Hangs On Strange Byte

Post by shneor »

Code: Select all

shneor@EtaCarinae:~$ inxi -Fxxxmprz
System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-124-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.4.0 
  Desktop: MATE 1.26.0 info: mate-panel wm: marco 1.26.0 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 
  Distro: Linux Mint 20.3 Una base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: CHUWI�Innovation�And�(ShenZhen) product: HeroBook Air 
  v: N/A serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: N/A model: N/A serial: <filter> UEFI: American Megatrends 
  v: YK-116-BI-Y116GRX700-GF50A-196-C date: 05/28/2022 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 23.4 Wh condition: 35.0/N/A Wh volts: 7.8/N/A 
  model: WB SR 1 WB Lion Battery type: Li-ion serial: <filter> 
  status: Discharging 
Memory:
  RAM: total: 3.66 GiB used: 923.8 MiB (24.6%) 
  RAM Report: 
  permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Celeron N4020C bits: 64 type: MCP 
  arch: Goldmont Plus rev: 8 L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 4377 
  Speed: 796 MHz min/max: 800/2800 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 796 2: 796 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel UHD Graphics 605 driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  chip ID: 8086:3185 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 driver: modesetting 
  unloaded: fbdev,vesa compositor: marco v: 1.26.0 resolution: 1366x768~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel UHD Graphics 600 (GLK 2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.6 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus ID: 00:0e.0 
  chip ID: 8086:3198 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-124-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Realtek RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter 
  driver: rtl8821ce v: v5.5.2.1_35598.20191029 port: e000 bus ID: 01:00.0 
  chip ID: 10ec:c821 
  IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
  IF-ID-1: tun0 state: unknown speed: 10 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 119.24 GiB used: 14.49 GiB (12.2%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Netac model: S535N8 128GYN size: 119.24 GiB 
  speed: 6.0 Gb/s serial: <filter> rev: 0A0 scheme: GPT 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 116.32 GiB used: 14.48 GiB (12.5%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2 
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 511.0 MiB used: 5.2 MiB (1.0%) fs: vfat 
  dev: /dev/sda1 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 40.0 C mobo: N/A 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] https://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-earth-pro.list 
  1: deb [arch=amd64] http://dl.google.com/linux/earth/deb/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com una main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:
  Processes: 198 Uptime: 2m Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
  gcc: 9.4.0 alt: 9 Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 running in: mate-terminal 
  inxi: 3.0.38 
shneor@EtaCarinae:~$
Last edited by SMG on Wed Aug 17, 2022 5:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added code tags to inxi output to preserve its formatting.
shneor
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Re: Vanessa Upgrade Hangs On Strange Byte

Post by shneor »

Does anyone have a clue?
Thanks,
Shneor
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MiZoG
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Re: Vanessa Upgrade Hangs On Strange Byte

Post by MiZoG »

Speculation, not certainty. I understand you try to upgrade: you fire up Mintupgrade and the tool stops with that error message "utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xa0 in position 222: invalid start byte" while it probes system devices for info. Right? In this case, it evidently comes across a string containing non-utf-8 chars and can't cope with it. Your inxi-obtained system report shows such chars (Entry type: Laptop System...). Mintupgrade tool may need some tweaking there. You have possibly found a bug. If this is true, it is good idea to let Mint developers know.
Perhaps a fresh install won't face any problem at all. Your Mint installation, you mention, is only one week old. Fresh install might be the best solution for now.
shneor
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Re: Vanessa Upgrade Hangs On Strange Byte

Post by shneor »

Thanks!
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