Public bug reported:

The error message is generated if you format a partition before the
installation, then install Ubuntu 19.04 to that partition _without_
requesting it be formatted during the installation.

The pop-up message is:

"Error restoring installed applications.

"An error occurred while restoring previously-installed applications.
The installation will continue, but you may have to manually reinstall
some applications after the computer reboots."

Hit OK on that, and a message says that the installation is complete,
and the "restart now" button then boots the apparently undamaged Ubuntu
19.04 installation.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Before installation, format a hard-drive partition as ext4.
2. Begin installing Ubuntu (ubuntu-19.04-desktop-amd64.iso) from a flash drive.
3. At installer's "Installation type" step, select "Something else".
4. Select the previously formatted partition and set its mount point to "/".
5. Leave that partition's "format" box unchecked (the default).
6. Press "Install" and click through a warning about not formatting.
7. At the end of the installation, a popup says the installation has errors.

Presumably the error message is invoked because it assumes that if you
do not request that the partition be formatted, then you are installing
into a previous installation (i.e. upgrading) but something breaks at
the end of the installation when it can find no evidence of said
previous installation.

Formatting a partition _before_ the  installation is useful for
specifying specific file-system labels and UUIDs so that other operating
systems installed on the same PC may mount the partition as they did
previously, so this is probably a fairly common user-case.

I've had this same error appear for at least the past 5 years whenever 
installing a new release of Ubuntu, but since the process of establishing 
repeatable conditions for an installation problem that occurs at the _end_ of 
an installation is very time-consuming, it's only now that I've got around
to making sure that non-formatting the partition during the installation _is_ 
the issue. It is. The problem goes away if the partition is formatted during 
the installation.

There are pages of Google hits for the string "An error occurred while
restoring previously-installed applications". Users that read the error
message are understandably concerned, and ask how they find out which
applications need to be "manually installed" as per the message.

Here's two forum posts where the posters did eventually realize that
formatting the partition during the installation made the problem go
away:

For Kubuntu 15.10: https://askubuntu.com/questions/698727
For Ubuntu 16.04:  https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2394271

** Affects: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

** Attachment added: "tarfile containing installer's syslog partman and debug 
files"
   
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1825355/+attachment/5256707/+files/installer.tar.gz

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1825355

Title:
  Error message if installing Ubuntu 19.04 to pre-formatted partition

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