lockup for update manager - broken on 8.04 desktop

[peterennis]

New install of ubuntu 8.04 desktop
There are 89 new updates
Start the process and the update manager is stuck as
inaccessible (all gray)
Wait..................................

Still stuck,
reboot, retry, same problem

I did this:

ps -aux | grep manager

and then the following:

...
peter 5506 0.1 10.6 75624 54248 ? Sl May22 1:28 /usr/bin/python2.5 /usr/bin/update-manager
peter 5519 0.0 1.0 14736 5376 ? S May22 0:08 /usr/bin/gksu --desktop /usr/share/applications/update-manager.desktop -- /usr/sbin/synaptic --hide-main-window --non-interactive --parent-window-id 35651587 -o Synaptic::closeZvt=true --progress-str Please wait, this can take some time. --finish-str Update is complete --set-selections-file /tmp/tmplScgJh
peter 5881 0.0 0.1 3008 768 pts/0 R+ 10:36 0:00 grep manager
peter@ubuntu804:~$ kill -9 5519
peter@ubuntu804:~$

The install updates button is now available, so try again,

56.1 MB of updates,

gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
GStreamer plugins from the "good" set (Size: 852 KB)

it gets stuck here!

but still gets stuck on the first in the list

[peterennis (peterennis)]

Uncheck the gstreamer0.10-plugins-good
and it will start to download the other updates

[peterennis (peterennis)]

The updates installed successfully.
Then gstreamer0.10-plugins-good would
download and also installed successfully.

Now 18 more updates, moving on...

[peterennis (peterennis)]

same problem again today - 50 updates
...
finally did this:

peter@ubuntu804:~$ ps ax | grep update
 5376 ? S 0:08 update-notifier
 7303 ? Sl 0:11 /usr/bin/python2.5 /usr/bin/update-manager
 7320 ? S 0:00 /usr/bin/gksu --desktop /usr/share/applications/update-manager.desktop -- /usr/sbin/synaptic --hide-main-window --non-interactive --parent-window-id 33554435 -o Synaptic::closeZvt=true --progress-str Please wait, this can take some time. --finish-str Update is complete --set-selections-file /tmp/tmpnlTFYq
 7330 pts/0 R+ 0:00 grep update
peter@ubuntu804:~$ sudo kill -9 7320
sudo: unable to resolve host ubuntu804
peter@ubuntu804:~$ ps ax | grep update
 5376 ? S 0:08 update-notifier
 7303 ? R 0:16 /usr/bin/python2.5 /usr/bin/update-manager
 7338 pts/0 R+ 0:00 grep update
peter@ubuntu804:~$ sudo kill -9 7303
sudo: unable to resolve host ubuntu804
peter@ubuntu804:~$ sudo kill -9 5376
sudo: unable to resolve host ubuntu804
peter@ubuntu804:~$ sudo /usr/bin/python2.5 /usr/bin/update-manager
sudo: unable to resolve host ubuntu804
current dist not found in meta-release file

Summary: I killed all the update processes, including notifier,
then run update-manager from the command line and
it starts downloading...

[Wim (wimvandender)]

I think this bug is a duplicate of bug 187982

This bug report has some workarounds you can try.