Software Update Crash

[Quarkrad]

Running Mate 16.04. Past few weeks I get the software updater appear in the bottom task bar - when I click on it, to launch on the Desktop, it disappears. If I try and launch Software Updater via the menus nothing happens. At the moment I'm launching the terminal and entering sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. How can I get the auto updater gui to work as normal? Thanks.

[howefield]

when I click on it, to launch on the Desktop, it disappears. If I try and launch Software Updater via the menus nothing happens.

Do you get any errors if you try to launch the update manager via the terminal ?

update-manager

At the moment I'm launching the terminal and entering sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade.

Which is presumably working ?

[Quarkrad]

That command certainly fixed it - thank you - I can now launch the gui and it shows me updates to download. However, I have noticed that I longer get any automatic prompts for a download. The Software & Updates gui is set to Automatically check for updates: Daily and When there are security updates: Display immediately. I have to manually launch the gui to see if there are any downloads - today I have 111.0MB including 3 security updates.

[RobGoss]

Normally Ubuntu's updater will let you know updates are available by displaying a notice at the top right hand corner on your desktop but for some reason it does not always work. I use a dock like Cairo dock and I have a updater icon at the bottom of the dock it always displays system updates when available and it %100 reliable

[Quarkrad]

I'm still not getting an automatic launch of the software updater - currently I have 101mb of updates to install but the launcher has not launched.

[Dennis N]

I'm still not getting an automatic launch of the software updater - currently I have 101mb of updates to install but the launcher has not launched.

I do believe there is something wrong with the update checking on 16.04. I have the same problem on 3 different computers and Xubuntu 16.04. Here is what I have in my log after looking at this over a period of time several months ago:

After suspecting a problem with automatic updates, what I did was to refrain from manually updating my system until I saw a the software-updater launch to notify me that there were updates. I waited over a month and there was never a notification. I finally ran apt-get update and there were a load of updates found. I did not run apt-get upgrade at the time, just to see it I would finally be notified. The next day, the software-updater popped up to tell me updates were available.

My preliminary conclusion is that the checking is faulty, but the notification is working.

Since then, the only way to update those 3 OSes is to launch Software Updater manually to check for updates, or use apt or Synaptic Package Manager. There is a complex decision algorithm that is supposed to be followed with automatic updates, but something is not working right.

[Quarkrad]

Still not auto updating (giving me notification). Is there something on Launchpad I can follow if this is a bug?

[ian-weisser]

A bug report is useful only if you have enough information for a Triager to reproduce the bug.

Have you re-installed update-notifier?
Have you checked that update-notifier works?
Have you looked in /var/crash for update-notifier crash files?
Have you looked in /var/log/syslog for clues? Remember to check yesterday's too - apt's daily update is usually triggered by cron.daily, which also rotates the logs.

[oldrocker99]

I use Ubuntu MATE 16.04 and have seen bottom panel buttons disappear when clicked on; it's a pain, and there doesn't seem to be any mention on Google. I certainly can live with it. It is a small bug, IMHO.

[Dennis N]

For reference, here is some information relating to the machine of post #6 (and two others with the same problem) running Xubuntu 16.04

Here is some recent documentation of the updater activity:

Nov 7:

dmn@Sydney:~$ ls -l /var/lib/apt/periodic/
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 26  2016 unattended-upgrades-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Nov  7 11:50 update-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Sep 25 08:11 update-success-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 26  2016 upgrade-stamp

Sep 25 was the last refresh of the source lists that I ran, through Synaptic. At that time, there had been no prior notification that updates were available. After which I marked and applied available upgrades. On Nov 7 (above display), over one month later, no updates have been found since Sep 25 (update-success-stamp). And no notifications have been received.

Nov 10:

On Nov 10, a warning appeared on the panel (see attachment #1):

and another check shows that sources not updated for 46 days:

dmn@Sydney:~$ ls -l /var/lib/apt/periodic
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 26  2016 unattended-upgrades-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Nov 10 09:35 update-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Sep 25 08:11 update-success-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 26  2016 upgrade-stamp

I then ran apt-get update in the terminal, and update-success stamp shows that sources have been successfully updated:

dmn@Sydney:~$ ls -l /var/lib/apt/periodic
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 26  2016 unattended-upgrades-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Nov 10 09:35 update-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Nov 10 12:07 update-success-stamp
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Apr 26  2016 upgrade-stamp

A couple of minutes later, Software Updater launched itself to the panel. Viewing the Software Updater window, it informs me that 340 mB of updates are available.

I then ran the upgrade from the Software Updater window. These successfully complete.

Finally, attachment #2 shows the update settings being used in Software & Updates. The daily checking is clearly not being done.