Ubuntu 26.04.1 Upgrade - Massive, Weird Issues. What Do?

[u/Kurazarrh]

I've got a bit of a cry for help here. I recently upgraded my 24.04 LTS machine to 26.04 LTS, and basically... everything is borked. Here's a list of the weird issues I'm having:

1) Apps installed from the Snap Store AFTER the update fail to open; they all throw a C++ null pointer exception.

2) Snaps installed BEFORE the update cannot be rolled back or removed. The Snap store says "there was a problem" and just stops trying.

3) VLC in particular won't play any EAC3 audio, unless I play some OTHER audio in another program. For example, if I play a YouTube video, then start playback with EAC3 audio in VLC, the audio plays... until I close YT or pause the video. Conversely, if I start playback in VLC with EAC3 audio, then start YT playback, I don't get audio in either application until I fully close both and reopen YT in my browser.

My question is largely, "How the heck do I even start to fix this?" Should I just wipe my installation and start fresh?

This isn't the first time a big Linux LTS upgrade has completely wrecked a computer; I've had OpenSUSE do that to me in the past, which also required a full flatten + reinstall. I'd just rather avoid it, because it means spending an entire weekend dicking around with a media server that I honestly ask SO LITTLE of, it's frustrating that Ubuntu would bork this upgrade so hard.

[u/tomscharbach]

My question is largely, "How the heck do I even start to fix this?" Should I just wipe my installation and start fresh?

Ubuntu's automatic upgrade works reasonably well if but only if the upgraded installation is reasonably "out-of-the-box" with few modifications. That does not seem to have been the case for your installation.

Your best bet is to do a clean installation. Not what you want to hear, but that's what I think.

[u/Kurazarrh → u/tomscharbach]

Blech, yeah, it's not what I wanted to hear, but clean installation is probably less work than further troubleshooting.

I haven't actually done much with this installation aside from installing a few apps: Plex Media Server, NordVPN, VLC... that's about it. I did have a strange, botched set of patches back in July. I think it had to do with a kernel update, and it 100% wrecked the computer to the point it was unusable. I had to roll back those updates and perma-ban those packages. Maybe the 26.04 really leans on those packages or something. It's just weird to me that a full version upgrade like that wouldn't just purge everything with fire and set itself up exactly as it needs to...

[u/Great-Cow7256 → u/Kurazarrh]

def has something to do with this. Before you nuke your computer, use a LLM like claude or gemini and ask them what to do. I bet you have to install some missing dependenies, etc. etc or because you permabanned packages it couldn't update them. I bet this can be fixed in 25 min or so with the help of Mr. Claude.

[u/nattydread69]

Always backup with timeshift before an upgrade

[u/Kurazarrh → u/nattydread69]

I'm a bit of a Linux newbie... I hardly touch the Ubuntu (it's a media server), and been on Bazzite for a year, but that kind of does most things for me automagically.

I'll look into a timeshift backup for next time...

[u/nattydread69 → u/Kurazarrh]

I've also learnt this lesson the hard way. Upgrades generally work. But not always, especially if you have a nonstandard setup.

[u/Kurazarrh → u/nattydread69]

My setup is pretty bog-standard. No manual modifications to the OS, just some Snap apps I use (VLC, NordVPN, etc).

[u/Ancient-Opinion9642 → u/nattydread69]

If a person has to do that, the upgrade is a failure. Ubuntu is lazy. Or there isn’t a fix to their upgrade.

[u/nattydread69 → u/Ancient-Opinion9642]

I've borked many linux systems upgrading not just ubuntu.

[u/RoninKen]

I initially had some issues upgrading from Ubuntu 24.04 LTS to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. However, I consulted with ChatGPT and got it all together in a short time. You input the relevant prompts in the chat and it will be all good.

[u/bmullan]

After the upgrade and your first reboot did you...

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt upgrade -y

$ sudo snap refresh

To make sure you got all the most recent fixes ?

[u/Kurazarrh → u/bmullan]

I did that, yep. Didn't seem to help. =/

[u/putsomesugaronit]

Did you use the APT autoremove or autoclean before you upgraded or soon thereafter? That has borked my upgrades a few times. Unfortunately, a fresh re-install, as suggested, might be the only way...

[u/Kurazarrh → u/putsomesugaronit]

Hm, I didn't know those commands existed. I'll give it a shot. I haven't made any other changes to the computer since the update, so it should still be clean enough to try this.

[u/rbmorse]

Before you do anything rash, try rebooting the machine. Sometimes that helps.

[u/Kurazarrh → u/rbmorse]

Already done that a fair few times after making some configuration changes.

[u/glyndon]

Something I usually do when this happens is run the updater again, in case there are more to install once the dist-upgrade is done. That, and reboot in between running update. Repeat until nothing gets updated.

[u/FabulousAd7773]

Do a clean install for 26.04.1.....it will run smooth

[u/bboozzoo]

Can you post the exact error you see when starting snap applications?

[u/Kurazarrh → u/bboozzoo]

Next time it happens, I'll post it, but I'm liable to just reinstall Ubuntu at this point and call it a day.

[u/dont_dm_nudes]

Just a tip for your eventual reinstall. On my home servers I run everything in containers and keep the important files on a separate disk. All the containers have a folder on ~/ where the config, data and docker-compose sits. On a fresh install of the OS I can have everything back up in an hour.

[u/Kurazarrh → u/dont_dm_nudes]

I'm not a high-enough level wizard to use containers/Docker yet. But I do have my files on an entirely separate disk (a RAID 1 array, actually), so a reinstallation is going to be a PITA but not catastrophic.

Just that with my wife and kids watching stuff on the server every day, downtime tends to get... whiney...

[u/r2d3x9]

Try to install —reinstall snap and all your snap apps and all the Vlc apps.

[u/ironman07882]

I'd bet it is a customization you made, or a prior upgrade dependency that wasn't met and you forced the upgrade anyway.

FWIW I performed this LTS to LTS upgrade on a Raspberry Pi board using the online CLI tool. No issues, but that installation was very close to the original distro.

[u/Kurazarrh → u/ironman07882]

I literally made no customizations except installing a few Snap packages, except for some botched kernel updates that happened back in July or so. Just a mystery to me.

[u/polarpress]

I had issues too. I had AI help me by given it screenshots of the issues I was having and it fixed.

[u/bleak_kangaroo]

snap’s been a mess since they started pushing it so hard, feels like every major upgrade they break the whole thing in new creative ways

[u/Last-Environment7687]

I used to use ubuntu 26.04 LTS forever but with snap being so inconsistent I finally Switched to Cachy os on KDE Plasma and never have issues anymore and honestly easier then using Ubuntu

[u/Last-Environment7687 → u/Last-Environment7687]

I Just Stay away from using the AUR Reprository

[u/Kurazarrh → u/Last-Environment7687]

Yeah I'm not really raving about anything this Ubuntu server has done for me. It's kind of been a pattern of "works fine for 6 months" and then "disaster for a week/weekend."

I might just do Fedora or something. Heck, I've been really happy with Bazzite on all my other PCs. (No whining about "immutable OS" now! :P)