Can't upgrade keeps showing this: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out

[tony]

Hello, wanted to upgrade Kali so following this: https://www.kali.org/docs/general-use/updating-kali/

Downloaded all the files but when installing keeps showing this message:

Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)

And it just exits the upgrade, so I rebooted and everything seems to be fine, but since it never finished the upgrade I typed:

$ sudo apt --fix-broken install
[sudo] password for tony: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  at-spi2-core libaom0 libcodec2-0.9 libdap27 libdapclient6v5 libdav1d4 libepsilon1 libgdal28 libgeos-3.9.0 libnetcdf18 libproj19 libpython3.9-dev libqhull8.0
  librest-0.7-0 libtbb2 liburing1 libx265-192 libyara4 odbcinst odbcinst1debian2 python3-editor python3-humanize python3-llvmlite python3.9-dev
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  libapache2-mod-php libdaxctl1 libndctl6 libpmem1 mariadb-client-10.6 mariadb-client-core-10.6 mariadb-server-10.6 mariadb-server-core-10.6 php-mysql
  php8.1-mysql
Suggested packages:
  mailx mariadb-test netcat-openbsd
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  mariadb-client-10.5 mariadb-client-core-10.5 mariadb-server-10.5 mariadb-server-core-10.5 php7.4-json php7.4-mysql
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libdaxctl1 libndctl6 libpmem1 mariadb-client-10.6 mariadb-client-core-10.6 mariadb-server-10.6 mariadb-server-core-10.6 php8.1-mysql
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libapache2-mod-php php-mysql
2 upgraded, 8 newly installed, 6 to remove and 884 not upgraded.
836 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/13.7 MB of archives.
After this operation, 3,583 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 345750 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing mariadb-server-10.5 (1:10.5.8-3) ...
Failed to stop mariadb.service: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
See system logs and 'systemctl status mariadb.service' for details.
dpkg: error processing package mariadb-server-10.5 (--remove):
 installed mariadb-server-10.5 package pre-removal script subprocess returned error exit status 1
dpkg: too many errors, stopping
Failed to reload daemon: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
Failed to reload daemon: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
Failed to get unit file state for mariadb.service: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
Failed to retrieve unit state: Failed to activate service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)
mariadb.service is a disabled or a static unit, not starting it.
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mariadb-server-10.5
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[tony]

I just turned on Kali and typed again: sudo apt --fix-broken install, just to see someting new and surprisingly it started to fix the install

After that: sudo apt upgrade, to upgrade all the packages

Then: sudo apt autoremove, to remove unused packages

Making sure everything upgraded: apt --upgradable, it showed 5 packages not upgraded, typed again: sudo apt upgrade, it says that there are 5 not upgraded, so I had to upgrade each one, 3 were wine so I typed: sudo apt upgrade wine

The other 2 were related to Kali so I typed one of them: sudo apt upgrade kali-linux-headless

Ok, again typed: sudo apt autoremove

And now seems that everything was upgraded because it does not complain with packages anymore

Last is to verify the versions:

$  grep VERSION /etc/os-release
VERSION="2022.2"
VERSION_ID="2022.2"
VERSION_CODENAME="kali-rolling"

$ uname -v
#1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 5.16.18-1kali1 (2022-04-01)

$  uname -r
5.16.0-kali7-amd64

So for now everything it's working