Unable to Install or Update Software Due to Frozen Dropbox Update

[Terence_Cordner]

Hi, I've seen some similar issues to this in the past, but I'm a bit new to Ubuntu and wasn't able to figure out how to resolve it. I had an automatic update for dropbox that keeps freezing at 100%. I'm not able to update or upgrade anything else because I believe it is stuck with the Dropbox update. The error I get is:

"Software index is broken. It is impossible to install or remove any software. Please use the package manager "Synaptic" or run "sudo apt-get install -f" in a terminal to fix this issue at first."

I don't have Synaptic and can't install it. When I run the command in terminal I get:

"E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?"


Is there an easy way that I can terminate this update? At this point I'm perfectly fine getting rid of Dropbox all together too.

Thanks for your help.

[bapoumba]

The message about the lock means there is another package manager open, the Software Center for ex. Please close it and run sudo apt-get install -f again and post the full output here, thanks.

[Evan_B._Howard]

Hi. I am quite new to Ubuntu and I have encountered precisely the same problem. I tried to install Dropbox (not noticing that it was meant for GNOME desktop while I have Unity preinstalled in my Dell xps 13). The installation froze. Likewise with my attempt to remove. My computer just kept running. Later, when using Update Manager I saw the "it is impossible to install or remove software message." When doing the "apt-get install -f" thing I received the message: "could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable) Unable to lock the administration directory 9/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?"

Thanks to Bapouma's advice I tried "closing" the Software Manager and found no button to do this. I unlocked it from the launcher, but I am not sure that accomplished anything. After doing a little homework on "closing" programs, I went to the terminal and typed "sudo killall dropbox" and that stopped the constant running of my computer. I received a message that I needed to take further steps now in order to install dropbox.

From that point, again, after a bit of homework (see "Three Ways to Uninstall Ubuntu Software (http://ww.wikihow.com/Uninstall-Ubuntu-Software)") I used "sudo apt-get --purge remove dropbox" to uninstall dropbox and the configurations related to the software. When complete, I received the message "Reading package lists . . . Done." Then "Building dependency tree" Then "Reading state information. . . Done" Then "E: Unable to locate package dropbox" I think this means I did something right, yes?

First time I've done anything like this from the terminal. Now I'll try and install Synaptic.

[bapoumba]

@ Evan_B._Howard, if you want to check if you have removed dropbox (not sure this is what you intended), you can run :

apt-cache policy nautilus-dropbox
It will tell you if the package is installed or not. Here is for me, as an example, I do have it installed and working properly :

bapoumba@bapoumba-utopic:~$ apt-cache policy nautilus-dropbox
nautilus-dropbox:
Installed: 1.6.2-1
Candidate: 1.6.2-1
Version table:
*** 1.6.2-1 0
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ utopic/multiverse i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Evan_B._Howard]

Thanks, Bapoumba for the help.
I ran your script and this is what I received:


evan@evan-XPS13-9333:~$ apt-cache policy nautilus-dropbox
nautilus-dropbox:
Installed: 0.7.1-2
Candidate: 0.7.1-2
Version table:
*** 0.7.1-2 0
500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/multiverse amd64 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

So I tried the same command with a program I know is not installed (Geany). In this case I received:


evan@evan-XPS13-9333:~$ apt-cache policy geany
geany:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 0.21.dfsg-1ubuntu4
Version table:
0.21.dfsg-1ubuntu4 0
500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/universe amd64 Packages

I think this means I still have not removed it yet, correct? I actually was trying to remove Dropbox after improperly installing it. I was thinking that I needed to (1) remove it, (2) learn how to configure it for Unity, and then (3) Install it again properly.

Comments? Thanks again.

[m3ATmeX]

Perhaps this (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2248189&highlight=remove+dropbox) post will help you

[bapoumba]

Please also try sudo apt-get purge nautilus-dropbox and post the output if you get any error.

[Evan_B._Howard]

Here is my output:


evan@evan-XPS13-9333:~$ sudo apt-get purge nautilus-dropbox
[sudo] password for evan:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
nautilus-dropbox*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 375 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 233643 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing nautilus-dropbox ...
Dropbox isn't running!
dropbox: no process found
Purging configuration files for nautilus-dropbox ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...

I checked through s/w center and found that Dropbox had been removed. Ten minutes earlier s/w center said it was installed.
Thank you for clarifying the NAUTILUS piece.

Now I will go to work on learning how to configure Dropbox for Unity before I try to install it again.

[bapoumba]

As far as I know, the nautilus-dropbox package is the one to install for all ubuntu flavors.