Kubuntu 8.04: Adept updater did not handled error during update in graceeful manner.Further adept operations became impossible.

[PowerUser]

System:
 Kubuntu 8.04 x64

What has been done?
 I did detected there is new packages and decided to install them. I launched updater.
 Updater has succesfully downloaded files.
 Then it began installation of packages.
 Somewhere in the middle some error has occurred while Adept Updater configured packages, part of dpkg.log related to this time attached.
 Adept has hanged in the middle of update and stopped responding.Update did not finished in 10 hours or so.So I had no choice but to kill Adept.

Actually, Adept has began complaining that database is in use and offered to resolve problem.
However, when I agree to allow resolve problem, Adept fails to resolve it and actually, crashes.

Investigation has shown that there is actually no other processes using packages database.
However there was another problem:
When trying "apt-get update" I got following error:
...
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

That is it, update has hanged in the middle and was interrupted because of this.However, GUI-based Adept just has no idea how to handle this.But actually dpkg is aware of this issue and actually after executing mentioned command Adept and Adept Updater have resumed their normal operation.

Expected UI behavior:
 Detect such scenario and offer to complete previous incomplete update as apt-get does.
 Ideally UI should also detect deadlocks and probably provide some choice to cancel hanged update

dpkg.log attached, you can see 2 sessions in slightly different times (even date differs, I just did not switched off this PC waiting update to complete).First session has hanged, second session is executed after mentioned actions.

[Thomas Kluyver (takluyver)]

I've seen something similar, where the upgrade process raised a text prompt (modified file vs. new packaged file). I didn't have the text output shown at the time, so it just failed to install properly. In my case, running "sudo aptitude safe-upgrade" pushed the changes through.

I suggest that this is a wishlist item--adept should have better handling of unexpected events during installation, so that it doesn't leave a mess that can only be sorted out from a command line. Two specific points:
- If a prompt is raised during installation or upgrade, open the text output section to give the user a chance to deal with it, rather than just failing.
- If adept is started when dpkg has been blocked, offer a button to click that will run "dpkg --configure -a"

[PowerUser (i-am-sergey)]

Yeah, forgot to say: when launched recommended command, interrupted update has began and there was text dialog asking how to handle my bootmenu.lst file.

Ideally, I prefer that GUI-based updater should ask same question in GUI dialogs.If this is too hard to implement, at least display console with this text to allow to enter some answer.

And suerly updater should attempt to retry on failed attempt.

And well, on failures where it can't do anything to resolve issue, it should give some hint to user that "you can try to run sudo apt-get ... to see more details about problem".Otherwise user will be in stuck with broken update system.