[Freedombox-pkg-team] Bug#991292: dist-upgrade interruption leaves hold on freedombox package

[James Valleroy]

Package: freedombox
Version: 21.4.3
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: jvalleroy at mailbox.org

Using freedombox from buster-backports (21.4.2~bpo10+1) on Lime2
hardware, I started a test of the dist-upgrade feature, using the
"--test" flag to perform dist-upgrade to bullseye:

# /usr/share/plinth/actions/upgrades start-dist-upgrade --test

After several hours, I found the process had been interrupted. By
running the same command again, it was able to complete the upgrades.

The freedombox dist-upgrade feature normally sets an apt-mark hold on
the freedombox package, to prevent the system from becoming
unreachable. The hold is set and removed within a try/finally
block.

However, at the end of my test, the hold was left on the freedombox
package.  Most like this is because the upgrade process was killed, so
the finally block will not be run, leaving the hold in place.

The impact is that if FreedomBox users rely on the automatic
dist-upgrade feature, there is a chance that after it completes, they
will need to manually remove the hold on the freedombox package.