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Blaze Tama
Asked: 2014-11-07 04:49:21 +0800 CST

"Software Updater" & "Software & Updates" not working

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I havent used my Ubuntu for quite a long time. Today, when I booted Ubuntu (14.04 LTS), the software updater and Software & Updates (from Settings) are not working.

The software updater's window will show up for around 1 sec, but it will close automatically. Software & Updates is never shown, no matter how many times I click the icon. Note that neither of them show any error message.

Those 2 features were working perfectly the last time I used Ubuntu. I want to do some system upgrade and update.

For now, I use sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. This command runs very fast, meaning (I think) my Ubuntu is not updated properly. The update from software updater always has a big size hence the download should be slower.

What should I do?

Can I just uninstall and reinstall both of them? If I can, how to do it?

Just to clarify, I don't want to upgrade my Ubuntu version (I want the LTS one), I just want to upgrade the software/packages I used.

Thanks for your time.

package-management

3 Answers

  1. This is a common thing which is simply solved. These commands clear the "phantom" or "hung" lists and may have to be used again as needed in the future for similar bug: 

    sudo rm -rvf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

    and then: 

    sudo apt-get update

    You may need to reboot computer for it to effect completely by typing: 

    sudo shutdown -r now
    • 16

  2. I have almost exactly the same problem as @Blaze Tama and the answer proposed by @Bruce and @edward torvalds did not fix it.

    I do not get any error message but when I click on the icons of Software updater and Software & Updates, nothing happens. And Software updater does not prompt me for updates any more.

    I am not completely sure that it is the same bug because the sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade command seems to work fine for me.

    My solution:

    1. Make sure that it is the same bug by running:

    /usr/bin/update-manager

    My solution should work if your error is:

    Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./update-manager", line 37, in <module>
    from UpdateManager.UpdateManager import UpdateManager
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UpdateManager/UpdateManager.py", line 43, in <module>
    import dbus
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/__init__.py", line 103, in <module>
    from dbus._dbus import Bus, SystemBus, SessionBus, StarterBus
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/_dbus.py", line 39, in <module>
    from dbus.bus import BusConnection
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/bus.py", line 39, in <module>
    from dbus.connection import Connection
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 27, in <module>
    import threading
ImportError: No module named 'threading'
    1. Download the module 'threading' in your version of Python3

    The source code for Python3.4 can be found at https://hg.python.org/cpython/file/3.4/Lib/threading.py . And should be saved in the folder /usr/lib/python3.4. (Or what ever your version of Python3 is. Be careful, in my case, I had this module for Python2.7 but not for Python3.4!)

    PS: This bug was described here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/elementaryos/+bug/1415128

    • 4

  3. Try the following :

    sudo apt remove update-manager
sudo apt autoremove -y
sudo rm -r /usr/bin/update-manager
sudo apt install update-manager
sudo apt update
    • 0