Restarted computer during update; "the system network service is not compatible with this version"

Question

Yesterday I upgraded my Ubuntu by SSH but before I finished it, I restarted my computer. I know that was not very smart. Anyway now I don't have internet connection, the WiFi or Ethernet is not recognized.

When I try on the latest version installed, the mice didn't work. When I try with previous version and go in gnome-network manager it's said:

The system network service is not compatible with this version

Another thing is when I comeback to the remote computer and look at the SSH terminal the process have stopped at:

Setting up desktop-file-utils (0.20-0ubuntu2) ... 
Configuration file `/etc/gnome/defaults.list' 
==> Modified (by you or by a script)
since installation. ==> Package distributor has shipped 
an updated version. What would you like to do about it ? 
Your options are: Y or I:install the package maintainer's 
version N or O : keep your currently-installed version D : 
show the differences between the versions Z : start a shell 
to examine the situation The default action is to keep your 
current version. * defaults.list (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? 
Write failed: Broken pipe

Is there any simple solution other than I having to reinstall my system?

Solution 1

Edit: This answer is over six years old and is no longer fresh due to changes in Ubuntu. This is a workaround.

Go into settings, startup items. Add an entry with the following command:

sudo service network-manager start

In a terminal, use visudo to add a NOPASSWD entry for this command so you do not need to give a password:

your-username-here ALL=NOPASSWD: service network-manager start

Next time you log on, this will force a start of the network manager (supposing that it is configured such that it can start up).

Solution 2

I faced the same issue. Workaround is to start the network-manager manually

sudo service network-manager start

Still trying to figure a way to fix it permanently.

Solution 3

I had to reinstall the NetworkManager package and reboot. Everything was fine then.

sudo apt-get --reinstall install network-manager

Solution 4

Just stick the following in /etc/rc.local before the line that says "exit":

NetworkManager

That should launch it whenever your system starts. A better way would be to add it to the appropriate init scripts so that it doesn't start in single user mode, but honestly it won't hurt anything this way either.

Solution 5

I also had a partially-complete upgrade cause this issue, but my fix was different. Turns out that network-manager won't start at boot if any of the interfaces in /etc/network/interfaces marked auto don't come online. Basically, the static network configuration stuff should all come online before network-manager will be triggered. For me, this was a stray eth0 configured to use dhcp. I had unplugged the ethernet from my box, and suddenly this problem emerged. Solution was to remove everything but the loopback interface from /etc/network/interfaces. See this link for more info

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Comments

[jeremiah]

I'm getting the same problem with Ubuntu 14.04

[nanofarad]

It's not a very clean way...

[DataPriest]

I haven't found one besides reinstalling :/

[Jill Clover]

Did you find the permanent way?

[jeremiah]

Please describe what you mean by "clean".

[ravi.zombie]

thanks @iGeorgie I am having ubuntu in Virtualbox.. This reinstallation of network manager worked for me :)

[Fritzip]

For permanent fix (in ArchLinux) : sudo systemctl enable NetworkManager.service then sudo systemctl start NetworkManager.service

[Mike T]

gksu was removed from Ubuntu, so this answer is not helpful for most folks. If you can, just open a command prompt and use sudo.

[nanofarad]

@MikeT The problem with the use of pure-sudo is that a startup item probably won't get a proper PTY. I think that the best way to handle this would be to require the NOPASSWD entry so that the command can run fully-automatically.