"Check for updates" button doesn't work

[ph]

Every time I go into Settings (by L clicking the downward triangle in the upper R of the screen), L clicking the button that shows a icon of a screwdriver and a wrench crossing each other).
I go to Details.
I go to the About tab.
I Left click the “Check for updates” button.

This function has NEVER worked properly on this laptop. It always opens another window that says “Software is up to date”.

I know that the software is not up to date (confirmed in aptitude).

As a work around, I have been applying updates through sudo aptitude in a terminal window, but I thought it would be nice for you Ubuntu folks to know the GUI tool for checking for updates has never been working on this laptop (for years).

It did not ever work for 18.04.4 for years. I'm going to update to v 20.04.4 this week but it's a long time bug so I think it probably won't be updated in v 20 either.

Thanks.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.28.2-0ubuntu0.18.04.6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-99.100-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-99-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.14
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Tue May 19 14:03:03 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2018-12-01 (534 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180725)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 1709725, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue doesn't exist the same way in focal, now the button use the software-properties UI (which isn't optimal)