up vote 23 down vote favorite
2

I am not sure what caused this error, but here is what the whole error says, and also this is sitting as a notification, and preventing me from updating any software using Update Manager - Please provide some assistance or tell me how to figure out what to do to fix it.

Could not calculate the upgrade

An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade.

Please report this bug against the 'update-manager' package and include the following error message:
'E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.'
share|improve this question
up vote 13 down vote

This post may solve your issue. To summarise,

  1. Open the /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt.log log file in a text editor.
  2. Locate any "broken" packages and remove them with sudo apt-get remove <package>.

Note: in newer versions, the log is located in /var/log/apt/term.log instead.

share|improve this answer
2  
+1. Worked perfectly. In my case, I just tried to apt-get remove a single pkg, which indicated other pkgs that depend on it to be removed too. Those pkgs were the ones that are distro-specific and their upgrade path was unknown to Ubuntu. – IsaacS Dec 18 '12 at 22:46
10  
cat: /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt.log: No such file or directory – Braden Best Oct 24 '14 at 3:39
    
I tried this. I found "this likely means your installation is broken" text, but do not know what package that refers to.... – ScottF Aug 12 '16 at 1:32
    
@ScottFlog in the /term.log and try to identify what it was trying to install. – Pykler Aug 12 '16 at 14:28
up vote 6 down vote

Try:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Then run the update-manager again.

share|improve this answer
up vote -1 down vote

This error can be caused by an incomplete package installation.

You have two options, 1) fix the broken installation, or 2) roll back (or remove) the broken installation.

Since it was not mentioned above, to roll back and remove the broken installation, exit synaptic (if you are still in it) and then enter these commands into a terminal:

sudo apt-get update       # Make sure your package list is up to date
sudo apt-get autoremove   # Removes "no longer required" packages

Then to confirm that the broken packages are gone, go back into synaptic and select, Edit | Fix broken packages and there should be no broken packages.

Note this does not fix the broken installation, it simply allows you to proceed again in synaptic with some other installation or removal, etc.

What happened was that you started a package installation and then part way through it, and after some dependencies had been installed, something went wrong, leaving unused dependent packages, and an incomplete install.

share|improve this answer

protected by Braiam Feb 15 '14 at 4:31

Thank you for your interest in this question. Because it has attracted low-quality or spam answers that had to be removed, posting an answer now requires 10 reputation on this site (the association bonus does not count).

Would you like to answer one of these unanswered questions instead?

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.