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(NB this is not just missed dist-upgrade. So the question is not a plain duplicate.)

After upgrade to Ubuntu 22.04, I've started getting a strange situation when a package is declared "kept back" without a visible reason. Just now:

# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  qemu-block-extra qemu-system-common qemu-system-data qemu-system-gui
  qemu-system-x86 qemu-utils

This had been happening with other packages a few days ago on another installation. I've checked hold mark on these packages, no one is present. Discover tool ignores them.

A wild guess about "verbose" mode just resulted in:

# apt-get dist-upgrade -V
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
   qemu-block-extra (1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.17 => 1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.18)
   qemu-system-common (1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.17 => 1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.18)
   qemu-system-data (1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.17 => 1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.18)
   qemu-system-gui (1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.17 => 1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.18)
   qemu-system-x86 (1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.17 => 1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.18)
   qemu-utils (1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.17 => 1:6.2+dfsg-2ubuntu6.18)
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6 not upgraded.

Package versions seem properly increasing.

A direct request like apt-get install qemu-utils will fix it. But the situation confuses me. This apt-get install doesn't describe why the mass upgrade ignored the packages. Questions:

  1. What factor results in this behavior? Is it a one-shot thing after release upgrade, or this is a regular behavior of the new release?

  2. Is there a option (option set) to ask apt-get to describe in details why it saves a package from upgrade? (Even in a renowned case like a hold mark.)

UPD: It is suggested "phased updates" may be a reason, see the comments. This looks veracious.

Netch
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