Auto updates seems to be stuck in a loop

[txinga]

Thought I'd post this here as well as over on Opsview's forum.

My Ubuntu 12.04 had a bunch of updates including opsview-core. Kicked off the updates from Ubuntu's update manager. It has been cycling through the following error for about 18 hours now.

Failed to connect to database - requesting root password
Use of Uninitialized value $_[1} in join or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Stack.pm line 111, <GEN0> line {this is incremental. now on 4770221 and counting}

HELP please. I have no idea what to do. I'm afraid to kill the update process as this will probably kill the machine.

Thanks,

tx

[schragge]

Try clicking the Cancel button.The upgrade will end in an error, for sure. If you haven't noticed which package was being upgraded as this occured, try to find out in /var/log/dpkg.log, and remove that package. After that, re-run update.

[txinga]

The Cancel button is not actionable.

[ibjsb4]

I have not delt with this problem, but I may of found the answer.

sudo apt-get clean

This may resolve the problem. If not reinstalling "debconf" may work. I have ran the reinstall command on my box without any ill effects so you should be ok.

You will probably have to kill update manager. Try ..

killall update-manager-core

Again, this looks like a (safe) solution, but we will only know for sure on your box.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2068601

[txinga]

kill all update-manager worked. the -core didn't exist. I then broke the lock with sudo fuser -cuk /var/lib/dpkg/lock; sudo rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/lock. Rebooted and ran a partial upgrade as all the updates wouldn't go through. Opsview still won't update but it IS running. So I could just say screw it and leave it at that version...

[ibjsb4]

I don't like partial upgrades, it can be trouble.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1859240

May want to follow it up with a dist-upgrade (#3).

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ap...nance_commands

But if you want to leave it go, thats your call

[Sef]

kill all update-manager worked. the -core didn't exist. I then broke the lock with sudo fuser -cuk /var/lib/dpkg/lock; sudo rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/lock. Rebooted and ran a partial upgrade as all the updates wouldn't go through. Opsview still won't update but it IS running. So I could just say screw it and leave it at that version...

Partial upgrades should never be done unless you like cleaning up the mess afterwards. They often will break a system.