[SOLVED] I keep getting the same software update that doesn't install

Gregg Bell · 06-19-2015, 11:29 AM

I'm running Xubuntu 15.04 and I keep (for two or three days now) getting this 1.2 MB software update that doesn't install. It starts like it's going to install but then nothing. (see screenshot)

And I haven't gotten any other software updates and I'm wondering if this one that doesn't install is blocking the other updates.

One last thought. I just Xed out of the update and when I did, the blue line shoots across as if it's installing. And that always happens (as if the update installs in that split-second) but then I get the same update again.

Thanks.

jdkaye · 06-19-2015, 11:47 AM

Hi Gregg,
You will get more useful information by install the package from the command line. Use aptitude (if it's installed) or apt-get with the command:

Code:

sudo apt-get upgrade

or

Code:

sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

I assume you have successfully completed the update phase; this wasn't clear from your post. It that isn't the case then do one of the two following commands in a terminal

Code:

sudo aptitude update
sudo apt-get update

Take screen shot of any useful feedback (e.g. error messages) from these commands.
jdk

Gregg Bell · 06-19-2015, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdkaye

Hi Gregg,
You will get more useful information by install the package from the command line. Use aptitude (if it's installed) or apt-get with the command:

Code:

sudo apt-get upgrade

or

Code:

sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

I assume you have successfully completed the update phase; this wasn't clear from your post. It that isn't the case then do one of the two following commands in a terminal

Code:

sudo aptitude update
sudo apt-get update

Take screen shot of any useful feedback (e.g. error messages) from these commands.
jdk

Hi LZM, It's serendipity that you responded. I'll send you a PM when I get done here and tell you why.

Okay, interestingly enough this problem is now occurinig on both my home and work comoputers. (They're both Xubuntu 15.04) Okay I ran the

sudo apt-get update

And got

Code:

gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get update
[sudo] password for gregg: 
Hit http://repo.steampowered.com precise InRelease
Hit http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam Sources                         
Hit http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam amd64 Packages                  
Hit http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam i386 Packages                   
Ign http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam Translation-en_US               
Ign http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam Translation-en                  
100% [Connecting to us.archive.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::13)] [Connecting to security.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1360:8c01::18)] [Connecting to dl.google.com (2607:f8b0:4009:804::1004)

Then I ran

sudo apt-get upgrade

And got

Code:

gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  linux-headers-3.19.0-15 linux-headers-3.19.0-15-generic linux-image-3.19.0-15-generic linux-image-extra-3.19.0-15-generic
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic
The following packages will be upgraded:
  aptdaemon aptdaemon-data gimp-help-common gimp-help-en libkf5wallet-bin libkf5wallet5 libkwalletbackend5-5 liblightdm-gobject-1-0 lightdm linux-libc-dev python-aptdaemon
  python-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python3-aptdaemon python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets python3-aptdaemon.pkcompat wpasupplicant xserver-xorg-video-intel
17 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 28.8 MB of archives.
After this operation, 8,192 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
0% [Connecting to us.archive.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::13)]

So, what do we make of this? Thanks.

jdkaye · 06-20-2015, 12:14 AM

Ok Gregg, just to be sure I understand your output pasted in the code windows... are you saying that the apt-get update command hangs at the point when

Code:

dl.google.com]

appears on the screen? Then you have to manually abort the update command by hitting ctl-c so that the update never finished? Is the same true for the upgrade command when the output

Code:

0 [Connecting to us.archive.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::13)]

appears?

I am concerned about the kernels (linux-image in Debian-speak). What is the output of this command

Code:

uname -a

The output suggests that it wants you delete some kernels (along with their headers packages) but I want to see what kernel version is actually being used.
jdk

Gregg Bell · 06-20-2015, 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdkaye

Ok Gregg, just to be sure I understand your output pasted in the code windows... are you saying that the apt-get update command hangs at the point when

Code:

dl.google.com]

appears on the screen? Then you have to manually abort the update command by hitting ctl-c so that the update never finished? Is the same true for the upgrade command when the output

Code:

0 [Connecting to us.archive.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::13)]

appears?

I am concerned about the kernels (linux-image in Debian-speak). What is the output of this command

Code:

uname -a

The output suggests that it wants you delete some kernels (along with their headers packages) but I want to see what kernel version is actually being used.
jdk

Hey LZM, Good morning! Yeah, they both hung at those two spots. (I had to do ctl-c to get out and the update didn't finish on either.) (And I gave them a good long time to kick in in case there was a time delay.)

Here's the uname -a results:

Code:

gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ uname -a
Linux LG 3.19.0-20-generic #20-Ubuntu SMP Fri May 29 10:10:47 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$

Thanks.

jdkaye · 06-20-2015, 12:48 AM

OK, so now that has upset ubuntu and the system needs some TLC. The following set of commands has worked for me in the past (on Debian but it should work the same on Ubuntu). Give them a try and see it that sorts out your problem. All the
commands are run with sudo.

Code:

apt-get clean
rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/*
apt-get clean
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Let's see what that does.
Cheers,
jdk

Gregg Bell · 06-20-2015, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdkaye

OK, so now that has upset ubuntu and the system needs some TLC. The following set of commands has worked for me in the past (on Debian but it should work the same on Ubuntu). Give them a try and see it that sorts out your problem. All the
commands are run with sudo.

Code:

apt-get clean
rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/*
apt-get clean
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Let's see what that does.
Cheers,
jdk

Hey LZM, Here's the results:

Code:

gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get clean
[sudo] password for gregg: 
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/*
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get clean
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get update
Get:1 http://repo.steampowered.com precise InRelease [2,840 B]
Get:2 http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam Sources [549 B]               
Get:3 http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam amd64 Packages [606 B]        
Get:4 http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam i386 Packages [805 B]         
Ign http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam Translation-en_US               
Ign http://repo.steampowered.com precise/steam Translation-en                  
Ign http://dl.google.com stable InRelease                                                                                                                                      
Get:5 http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg [198 B]                                                                                                                          
Get:6 http://dl.google.com stable Release [1,347 B]                                                                                                    
Get:7 http://dl.google.com stable/main amd64 Packages [1,184 B]                                                                                        
Get:8 http://dl.google.com stable/main i386 Packages [1,186 B]                                                                                                                     
Ign http://dl.google.com stable/main Translation-en_US                                                                                                                             
Ign http://dl.google.com stable/main Translation-en                                                                                                                                
100% [Connecting to us.archive.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::14)] [Connecting to security.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::15)]^Cgregg@LG:~/Desktop$                                        
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  linux-headers-3.19.0-15 linux-headers-3.19.0-15-generic linux-image-3.19.0-15-generic linux-image-extra-3.19.0-15-generic
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$

And the sudo apt-get update command hung at:

[Connecting to security.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::15)]

Thanks!

jdkaye · 06-20-2015, 01:44 AM

OK, it's looking a bit better. Can you now run the suggested command

Code:

apt-get autoremove

and then repeat the list of commands again. If the update command hangs again do not try the upgrade command. BTW how long do you wait before aborting the update command? If the update command still hangs, then you might try commenting out the secruity.ubuntu.com repository in your /etc/apt/sources.list file and see if it still hangs. This is just a temporary measure but it might determine where the problem is.
Let me know if all this is clear
jdk

Gregg Bell · 06-20-2015, 04:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdkaye

OK, it's looking a bit better. Can you now run the suggested command

Code:

apt-get autoremove

and then repeat the list of commands again. If the update command hangs again do not try the upgrade command. BTW how long do you wait before aborting the update command? If the update command still hangs, then you might try commenting out the secruity.ubuntu.com repository in your /etc/apt/sources.list file and see if it still hangs. This is just a temporary measure but it might determine where the problem is.
Let me know if all this is clear
jdk

Thanks LZM.

Okay, I did nothing regarding this last post of yours because there's a new development. Today there was a 97MB software update. So I went to install it. Same exact thing. The bar starts moving to the right but then stops in the exact same spot and there are no "details." (Just like in the original post's screenshot.) But--the difference--today I minimized that 97MB software update window and did some other things for maybe an hour. (And regarding your question about how long do I wait before aborting the update command? I would say only two or three minutes. When I'm convinced it's stuck (and esp. since it has never done this before) I abort it.) Well, when I brought the minimized software update window back it showed this window. (see screenshot) "The computer needs to restart to FINISH installing the update..."

Could it be that despite the bar graph being stuck for several minutes it eventually kicked in? And this was a bigger update but the bar graph was also stuck on a 1MB update. (And is there any way of ascertaining whether the update has indeed installed?)

Anyway, I did nothing about your latest post because I want to see how you respond to this one. What I'm going to do is restart the computer.

BTW If I eventually do need to do something additional regarding your last post I did not understand this sentence:

If the update command still hangs, then you might try commenting out the secruity.ubuntu.com repository in your /etc/apt/sources.

Thanks!

jdkaye · 06-20-2015, 11:37 PM

Ok Gregg. Let us know what happens when you restart the the machine. That may well solve your problem.

Regarding "commenting out" an entry in your /etc/apt/sources.list file it goes like this:
1. The sources.list file contains a series of lines that look like this:

Code:

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib

"Commenting out" the first entry looks like this:

Code:

# deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib

The first line will now be ignored by the system.
You would do this by opening up /etc/apt/sources.list in an editor, for example entering this command in your terminal:

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/opt/sources.list

I used gedit in the example but you can use whatever text editor you wish.

Hope that's clear.
jdk

Gregg Bell · 06-21-2015, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdkaye

Ok Gregg. Let us know what happens when you restart the the machine. That may well solve your problem.

Regarding "commenting out" an entry in your /etc/apt/sources.list file it goes like this:
1. The sources.list file contains a series of lines that look like this:

Code:

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib

"Commenting out" the first entry looks like this:

Code:

# deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ testing main non-free contrib
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ unstable main non-free contrib

The first line will now be ignored by the system.
You would do this by opening up /etc/apt/sources.list in an editor, for example entering this command in your terminal:

Code:

sudo gedit /etc/opt/sources.list

I used gedit in the example but you can use whatever text editor you wish.

Hope that's clear.
jdk

Thanks, LZM, for the explanation of the commenting out, but I don't think I need to go there (at least not yet).

After the restart (as mentioned in the previous post) the computer seems normal. I'll just wait till the next software update and see what happens. In the meantime I'll ask, have you ever heard of something like that (the download--seemingly--hanging but then actually downloading (if given enough time)?

And I was wondering if the "details" not showing up and the bar graph not proceeding might just be a bug on the window and meanwhile the update is actually installing.

Last question: How can I know (esp. in this weird situation) if the updates are being installed? (I assume they are, because if they weren't wouldn't the updates keep popping up again and again asking me to install them?) Thanks.

jdkaye · 06-21-2015, 11:30 PM

If you really want to see what's going on during the update and upgrade phase and would strongly advise using a terminal. Using a gui updater is fine as long as there are no problems but if there are... then you really need to stick to the terminal and use apt-get or aptitude (if you have installed it).
For apt-get these two commands do the job:

Code:

sudo apt-get install
sudo apt-get upgrade

For aptitude use

Code:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

Quote:

After the restart (as mentioned in the previous post) the computer seems normal. I'll just wait till the next software update and see what happens. In the meantime I'll ask, have you ever heard of something like that (the download--seemingly--hanging but then actually downloading (if given enough time)?

There are two issues to bear in mind when updating:
1. Some packages are very big and so take a while to download. For example a linux-image (kernel) can be 175M in size so obviously that's going to take a while to download and more or less time depending on the speed of your connection. If you use the terminal method of updating you can view the progress as it goes along.
2. Sometimes a given given repository (one of the lines in your sources.list file) is down or is slower than others. This can also cause some of the delays.

The moral of all this is if you really want to know what's going on then DO NOT use a gui for your updates; use the terminal.

Quote:

Last question: How can I know (esp. in this weird situation) if the updates are being installed? (I assume they are, because if they weren't wouldn't the updates keep popping up again and again asking me to install them?)

Use the terminal. In the upgrade phase you will see a series of lines appearing like this one:

Code:

setting up.... <name of package>

when that line appears in the terminal you know that the given package has been installed.

Hope this helps.
jdk

jdkaye · 06-22-2015, 02:11 AM

As a follow-up to the preceding post (#12), here is the terminal output at the end of the execution of the sudo aptitude safe-upgrade command. The lines beginning with "Setting up" indicate that the package named in that line (e.g. tzdata-java in the first line) has been installed. That's how you know that a package has been installed.

Code:

Setting up tzdata-java (2015e-1) ...
Setting up libglapi-mesa:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libglapi-mesa:i386 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libgbm1:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libegl1-mesa:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libwayland-egl1-mesa:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libgl1-mesa-dri:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libgl1-mesa-glx:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libgles2-mesa:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libosmesa6:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up libxatracker2:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up linux-headers-4.0-5.dmz.4-liquorix-amd64 (4.0-13) ...
Setting up mesa-vdpau-drivers:amd64 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up mesa-vdpau-drivers:i386 (10.5.7-1) ...
Setting up notification-daemon (3.17.2-2) ...
Setting up linux-headers-liquorix-amd64 (4.0-13) ...
Setting up linux-image-liquorix-amd64 (4.0-13) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18) ...
                                         
Current status: 55 updates [-20].

jdk

Shadow_7 · 06-22-2015, 07:37 AM

$ df

Make sure you have enough space for the update. The downloaded .deb files get archived in /var/cache/apt/archives/ and don't get removed depending on how you do your updates. These can add up to gigabytes of used space over time. And ultimately fill a disk.

Your DNS, Firewall, Routing, and other things can also get in the way at times. And the servers that your trying to access might have changed or become offline. All of these things can cause wait periods that might be infinite.

Gregg Bell · 06-23-2015, 12:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdkaye

If you really want to see what's going on during the update and upgrade phase and would strongly advise using a terminal. Using a gui updater is fine as long as there are no problems but if there are... then you really need to stick to the terminal and use apt-get or aptitude (if you have installed it).
For apt-get these two commands do the job:

Code:

sudo apt-get install
sudo apt-get upgrade

For aptitude use

Code:

sudo aptitude update
sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

There are two issues to bear in mind when updating:
1. Some packages are very big and so take a while to download. For example a linux-image (kernel) can be 175M in size so obviously that's going to take a while to download and more or less time depending on the speed of your connection. If you use the terminal method of updating you can view the progress as it goes along.
2. Sometimes a given given repository (one of the lines in your sources.list file) is down or is slower than others. This can also cause some of the delays.

The moral of all this is if you really want to know what's going on then DO NOT use a gui for your updates; use the terminal.

Use the terminal. In the upgrade phase you will see a series of lines appearing like this one:

Code:

setting up.... <name of package>

when that line appears in the terminal you know that the given package has been installed.

Hope this helps.
jdk

LZM,

I'm thinking something more systematic may be up. I was reading about "aptitude" and it sounded like a good thing to have, so I went to the terminal to get it. Here's what I came up with (and I've let it sit this way for 15 minutes):

Code:

gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ aptitude
The program 'aptitude' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install aptitude
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ sudo apt-get install aptitude
[sudo] password for gregg: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  linux-headers-3.19.0-15 linux-headers-3.19.0-15-generic
  linux-image-3.19.0-15-generic linux-image-extra-3.19.0-15-generic
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  aptitude-common aptitude-doc-en libcwidget3
Suggested packages:
  tasksel debtags libcwidget-dev
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  aptitude aptitude-common aptitude-doc-en libcwidget3
0 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
Need to get 2,868 kB of archives.
After this operation, 12.3 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
0% [Connecting to us.archive.ubuntu.com (2001:67c:1562::16)]

And it seems to me the updates were hanging in a similar spot.

I like the idea of getting the updates in the terminal. Next time I get an update I'll X it out and do the:

sudo apt-get install
sudo apt-get upgrade

Thanks!