Preupgrade F9 -> F12 fails with Parsing primary.xml error

[ttoth]

Hi There,

I'm having some issues upgrading my F9 to F12 using 'preupgrade' so I'm looking for some help to see if there is anybody who has ever been able to complete a preupgrade from F9 x86_64 to F12.

The error message I receive is TypeError: Parsing primary.xml error: attributes construct error.

To my knowledge this has been reported as a bug in F10 which was resolved by a yum update to version 3.2.24 . For F9 the latest yum version is 3.2.21 which has this Parsing error bug that prevents the preupgarde to continue.

Interesting enough that the preupgarde lets me select Fedora 12 and progresses with all the preupgrade steps properly until the parsing error occur.

Any help is appreciated on how to fix this Parsing error on a F9 x86_64 system.

Thanks.
Tamas

[ruig]

I have absolutely the same problem. I want to upgrade from fc9 to fc12. I have checked xml file and there is syntax error in tag definition (double quotes). Damnt.

I will try to perform upgrade using DVD ("replace existing installation" option). But i am not sure what Fedora developers mean under "replace existing installation"... Replace with purge/format partitions or upgrade (install new packages over existing)?!?!?!?!?

[donagha]

My solution was to install FC10 release file so that you can manually update yum to the correct version that will fix the problem. But you must also update a couple of others, otherwise you'll end up with different error messages:

rpm -Uvh ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub...e-*.noarch.rpm
yum update yum
yum update rpm
yum update createrepo
preupgrade-cli "Fedora 12 (Constantine)"


It processed further for me successfully,

1577/1577 - libcap-2.16-5.fc12.i686.rpm
Saving Primary metadata
Saving file lists metadata
Saving other metadata
Generating sqlite DBs
Sqlite DBs complete
Preparing system to boot into installer
DEBUG /sbin/grubby --title="Upgrade to Fedora 12 (Constantine)" --remove-kernel="/boot/upgrade/vmlinuz" --add-kernel="/boot/upgrade/vmlinuz" --initrd="/boot/upgrade/initrd.img" --args="preupgrade repo=hd::/var/cache/yum/preupgrade stage2=hd:UUID=3b151b54-e00c-4efb-bedd-98e5f7d63bde:/boot/upgrade/install.img ks=hd:UUID=3b151b54-e00c-4efb-bedd-98e5f7d63bde:/boot/upgrade/ks.cfg"
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
All finished. The upgrade will begin when you reboot.

[cwebster]

Sorry but there may be one step missing. I got the exact same errors when trying to "preupgrade" from F9 to F12.

After installing the Fedora 10 redhat-release files I had to do a "yum clean all". Without that I just got "No Packages marked for Update" when trying to update yum, rpm, and createrepo.

Just so others know what to expect, my session went something like this:
(output truncated for clarity)

Update to Fedora 10 release files (fool yum/rpm):

[root@inet3 ~]# rpm -Uvh ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/10/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/fedora-release-*.noarch.rpm
Retrieving ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/10/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/fedora-release-10-1.noarch.rpm
Retrieving ftp://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/releases/10/Fedora/i386/os/Packages/fedora-release-notes-10.0.0-1.noarch.rpm
warning: /var/tmp/rpm-xfer.vAQaCt: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 4ebfc273
Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
   1:fedora-release-notes   ########################################### [ 50%]
   2:fedora-release         ########################################### [100%]
[root@inet3 ~]#

Clean-up all yum cached files and data:

[root@inet3 ~]# yum clean all
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror, refresh-packagekit
Cleaning up Everything
Cleaning up list of fastest mirrors
[root@inet3 ~]#

Update yum:

[root@inet3 ~]# yum update yum
...
Updated:
  yum.noarch 0:3.2.24-2.fc10                                                    

Complete!
[root@inet3 ~]#

Update rpm:

[root@inet3 ~]# yum update rpm
...
Dependency Installed:
  compat-db45.i386 0:4.5.20-5.fc10                                              
  compat-db45.x86_64 0:4.5.20-5.fc10                                            
  file-libs.i386 0:4.26-5.fc10                                                  
  lua.i386 0:5.1.4-2.fc10                                                       
  xz.x86_64 0:4.999.8-0.8.beta.20090817git.fc10                                 
  xz-devel.x86_64 0:4.999.8-0.8.beta.20090817git.fc10                           
  xz-libs.i386 0:4.999.8-0.8.beta.20090817git.fc10                              
  xz-libs.x86_64 0:4.999.8-0.8.beta.20090817git.fc10                            
  xz-lzma-compat.x86_64 0:4.999.8-0.8.beta.20090817git.fc10                     

Updated:
  rpm.x86_64 0:4.6.1-3.fc10                                                     

Dependency Updated:
  elfutils.x86_64 0:0.142-1.fc10                                                
  elfutils-libelf.i386 0:0.142-1.fc10                                           
  elfutils-libelf.x86_64 0:0.142-1.fc10                                         
  elfutils-libelf-devel.x86_64 0:0.142-1.fc10                                   
  elfutils-libs.x86_64 0:0.142-1.fc10                                           
  file.x86_64 0:4.26-5.fc10                                                     
  file-libs.x86_64 0:4.26-5.fc10                                                
  gdb.x86_64 0:6.8-32.fc10                                                      
  lua.x86_64 0:5.1.4-2.fc10                                                     
  net-snmp.x86_64 1:5.4.2.1-5.fc10                                              
  net-snmp-libs.i386 1:5.4.2.1-5.fc10                                           
  net-snmp-libs.x86_64 1:5.4.2.1-5.fc10                                         
  rpm-build.x86_64 0:4.6.1-3.fc10                                               
  rpm-devel.i386 0:4.6.1-3.fc10                                                 
  rpm-devel.x86_64 0:4.6.1-3.fc10                                               
  rpm-libs.i386 0:4.6.1-3.fc10                                                  
  rpm-libs.x86_64 0:4.6.1-3.fc10                                                
  rpm-python.x86_64 0:4.6.1-3.fc10                                              
  systemtap.x86_64 0:1.0-2.fc10                                                 
  systemtap-runtime.x86_64 0:1.0-2.fc10                                         

Complete!
[root@inet3 ~]#

Update createrepo:

[root@inet3 ~]# yum update createrepo
...
Dependency Installed:
  deltarpm.x86_64 0:3.4-11.fc10.1                                               

Updated:
  createrepo.noarch 0:0.9.7-7.fc10                                              

Complete!
[root@inet3 ~]#

Now the preupgrade completes without errors. If it's been a while since the last attempt it may need to download newer update packages.

[root@inet3 ~]# preupgrade-cli "Fedora 12 (Constantine)"
...
Generating metadata for preupgrade repo
2065/2065 - chmlib-0.40-2.fc12.x86_64.rpm                                       
Saving Primary metadata
Saving file lists metadata
Saving other metadata
Generating sqlite DBs
Sqlite DBs complete
Preparing system to boot into installer
DEBUG /sbin/grubby --title="Upgrade to Fedora 12 (Constantine)" --remove-kernel="/boot/upgrade/vmlinuz" --add-kernel="/boot/upgrade/vmlinuz" --initrd="/boot/upgrade/initrd.img" --args="preupgrade repo=hd::/var/cache/yum/preupgrade stage2=hd:UUID=c24ffd8f-39c0-4dc2-bfeb-82960d157a5b:/upgrade/install.img ks=hd:UUID=c24ffd8f-39c0-4dc2-bfeb-82960d157a5b:/upgrade/ks.cfg"
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
All finished. The upgrade will begin when you reboot.
[root@inet3 ~]#

[ttoth]

Thanks for the replies. Finally I've got this upgrade working however I've jumped to F11 then from there to F12. The pre-upgrade from F9 to F11 went relatively painless. Now Constantine is up and running.

Thanks again for sharing your experience, I know now what I have missed which made my direct upgrade from F9 to F12 unsuccessful.

Regards,
Tamas

[diamond_ramsey]

Everyone, thank you for your posts.

One of the recommendations from the past upgrades is that an upgrade from a previous version is preferred. Upgrading from two versions is possible. But in this case upgrading from three versions is not recommended. Possibly, too many things will have changed within that timeframe.

Hope this helps.