Comment 1 for bug 808916

I tried both of your situations and it worked for me.

What i did:
- Downgraded a package to an older version with synaptic -> The Icon changed to orange and there was one menu item in the submenu
- Downgraded an other package -> The icon remained orange, but there was an other menu item. Both packages in the submenu were correct.
- I used Execute to perform the upgrade. The icon turned gray and the menu says "No updates available". There is no submenu anymore. Also, there is no error in the terminal at all.

Which versions of the required packages to compile do you use? Do you have the latest tarball? Try downloading it from the "External downloads", it's easier to compile.