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Accepted
GammaGames
Asked: 2021-02-06 12:37:04 +0800 CST

Could running dpkg --configure -a cause packages to need an update?

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After a server (16.04 running headless) reboot, I ran sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get dist-upgrade to update packages. The second command printed:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

After that command I ran the first two commands and it printed out a massive block of text with 2054 upgraded, 550 newly installed, 66 to remove and 5 not upgraded. I didn't continue because I didn't want to break anything.

I don't see anything unusual in my PPAs, is this expected behavior?

Edit: The output of sudo apt update as requested:

Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease [88.7 kB]
Hit:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease                               
Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease [88.7 kB]             
Get:4 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [49.0 kB]
Get:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [59.7 kB]        
Get:6 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease [74.6 kB]                
Get:7 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/multiverse amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [2,464 B]
Get:8 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages [1,877 kB]
Get:9 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main i386 Packages [1,214 kB]
Get:10 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [294 kB]
Get:11 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/universe amd64 Packages [1,714 kB]
Get:12 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/universe i386 Packages [1,560 kB]
Get:13 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [289 kB]
Get:14 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/multiverse amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [2,468 B]
Get:15 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports/universe amd64 DEP-11 Metadata [9,288 B]
Fetched 7,323 kB in 4s (1,502 kB/s)                             

(appstreamcli:4546): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_strchug: assertion 'string != NULL' failed

(appstreamcli:4546): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_strchomp: assertion 'string != NULL' failed

(appstreamcli:4546): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_strchug: assertion 'string != NULL' failed

(appstreamcli:4546): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_strchomp: assertion 'string != NULL' failed

(appstreamcli:4546): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_strchug: assertion 'string != NULL' failed

(appstreamcli:4546): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_strchomp: assertion 'string != NULL' failed
AppStream cache update completed, but some metadata was ignored due to errors.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
2067 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
apt

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    My /etc/apt/sources.list was updated for 18.04. I had a backup of the file, so I was able to copy that over and resolve the issue.

    If I didn't have a backup I would have had to replace all occurrences of bionic with xenial.

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