Ubuntu 24.04 recorded a system error. The ‘unreported reason’ for the error was that apt, apt-utils, libapt-pkg6.0t64 were out of date. I performed a general update and upgrade which revealed that those 3 items, plus some others, had not been upgraded because of ‘phasing’. What should I do?
Hello rjmcq - Welcome to the forum 
"What to do now?:
wait 
"Should I worry?:
No - phased updates/held packages are a normal process; if there is a problem update roll out ceases.
Please see:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PhasedUpdates
-it is just a thing-
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If you really don’t want to wait for the phasing to finish (might be days), you can force things with:
sudo apt -o APT::Get::Always-Include-Phased-Updates=true upgrade
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It is not a case of "really don’t want to wait " There is good reason why phasing was implemented in the first place. One needs a good reason to circumvent the check.
-safety is no accident-
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Most users should be patient.
Phasing is normal, and the phasing message you describe is merely informational (NOT error or problem).
Soon those phasing packages will updates. Maybe a few days.
(Occasionally a few weeks, in the rare case that a problem is discovered)
In this particular case, you specified that some older packages --including a few that were phasing-- seems to cause a serious problem (a system error). So you seem to have a good reason to not await phasing. So try this option (-o) that will skip the phasing queue.
sudo apt update
sudo apt -o APT::Get::Always-Include-Phased-Updates=true upgrade
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if you know which package is causing the problems you may bypass phasing just with
sudo apt install <package>
Yes, that’s another way to do it.
That will also apt-mark the package manual.
If that’s what is desired, go right ahead.
If that’s NOT what is desired, then…
sudo apt -o APT::Get::Always-Include-Phased-Updates=true upgrade
…will do the same thing without changing the apt-marking of the package.
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It doesn’t seem to have caused any additional problems so I think I’ll wait. Thank-you all for your hep.
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Thanks, I didn’t know about this collateral damage
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