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I tried to upgrade my Raspbian on Raspberri Pi 3 from Stretch to Buster but receive this error:

➜  ~ sudo apt dist-upgrade -y
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  libmicrodns0
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove it.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up wolfram-engine (12.0.1+2019062401) ...
ln: failed to create symbolic link '/usr/share/icons/nuoveXT2/64x64/mimetypes/application-mathematica.png': File exists
dpkg: error processing package wolfram-engine (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 wolfram-engine
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
➜  ~ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Raspbian
Description:    Raspbian GNU/Linux 9.13 (stretch)
Release:    9.13
Codename:   stretch

I tried to remove the symbolic links (after backing them up) but the error persists.

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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The Foundation advice is that update is not supported.

Unofficial script, posted by users with the expertise to fix issues may work. The chances these will work after almost 2 years when Buster is nearing its end are close to zero.

Do a fresh install.

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  • The issue is that I need to upgrade someone else's RPi which is thousand KM away from me. He has disability can the only computer he has is the RPi that I gave him last year. It would be great if I can find a workaround otherwise it would be hard to help him.
    – Mostafa Ahangarha
    Feb 1, 2021 at 6:25
  • @MostafaAhangarha regardless of the reason it is still not recommended. Even an experienced user would not attempt to do this by remote control. Send him a fresh SD Card which works.
    – Milliways
    Feb 1, 2021 at 7:23
  • For now I have removed wolfram-engine to avoid the error. I will try upgrade on my own RPi and if succeeded, then repeat it on his machine. If now, I will install fresh copy on mine and then config it and make image for him. Then will find a person to write that image on his SD. I hope the first approach works. Thanks for your inputs.
    – Mostafa Ahangarha
    Feb 1, 2021 at 7:31
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This is not the solution but I need to share this to conclude this question.

Since I didn't need this software, I simple uninstalled it. So the without getting the error, I could proceed with upgrading task.

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