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GoodNite
Asked: 2019-01-16 07:20:58 +0800 CST

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)

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I'm trying to run this command in the terminal:

sudo apt install software-properties-common

This is the error message I get:

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)  
E: Unable to acquire the dpkg frontend lock (/var/lib/dpkg/lock-frontend),   
 is another process using it?
package-management dpkg sudo apt lock

1 Answers

  1. This may happen if

    1. 'Synaptic Package Manager' or 'Software Updater' is open.

    2. Some apt command is running in Terminal.

    3. Some apt process is running in background.

    For above wait for the process to complete. If this does not happen run in terminal:

    sudo killall apt apt-get

    If none of the above works, remove the lock files. Run in terminal: (Note that this can seriously break your system.)

    sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock*

    then reconfigure the packages. Run in terminal:

    sudo dpkg --configure -a

    and

    sudo apt update

    That should do the job.

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