software hangs on "checking for updates"

[Henning Sprang]

Gnome software regularly seems to have problems with getting it's updates or handle them properly.

It's not clearly reproducible, as sometimes it sems to work.

This time, the steps to get there were:

* open the gnome software app
* see some updates being offered
* click on update all
* wait a while
* return to the computer and see the application saying "checking..." at the top left
* wait for 10, 20, 30 minutes - but nothing changes, it keeps trying to fetch some updates, but I dont get any information from where and what and why it takes so long to just look if there are any updates or my installed applications are current

There are a bunch of journalctl entries maybe related to that, that I will add in the comments for their size

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: gnome-software 41.5-2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.15.0-41.44-lowlatency 5.15.39
Uname: Linux 5.15.0-41-lowlatency x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.1
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: unknown
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Tue Jul 26 16:20:41 2022
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-software
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-04-12 (834 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
InstalledPlugins:
 gnome-software-plugin-flatpak 41.5-2
 gnome-software-plugin-snap 41.5-2
SourcePackage: gnome-software
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to jammy on 2022-04-28 (88 days ago)

[Henning Sprang (henning)]

Here the journalctl entries for the app itself in this run:

$ journalctl --reverse _COMM=gnome-software
Jul 26 16:29:06 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: user: Pulled appstream2/x86_64 from flathub
Jul 26 16:29:06 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: libostree pull from 'flathub' for appstream2/x86_64 complete
                                             security: GPG: summary+commit
                                             security: SIGN: disabled http: TLS
                                             non-delta: meta: 2 content: 0
                                             transfer: secs: 43 size: 592 bytes
Jul 26 16:28:28 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: user: Pulled appstream2/x86_64 from flathub
Jul 26 16:28:28 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: libostree pull from 'flathub' for appstream2/x86_64 complete
                                             security: GPG: summary+commit
                                             security: SIGN: disabled http: TLS
                                             non-delta: meta: 7 content: 31
                                             transfer: secs: 1207 size: 6,0 MB
Jul 26 16:09:24 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: failed to get featured apps: Timeout was reached as flatpak took too long to return results
Jul 26 16:09:24 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: failed to get popular apps: Timeout was reached as flatpak took too long to return results
Jul 26 16:09:24 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: failed to get recent apps: Timeout was reached as flatpak took too long to return results
Jul 26 16:09:19 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: /var/tmp/flatpak-cache-834JP1/org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-515-48-07-ST4JP1/repo-xUp2pI: Pulled runtime/org.freedesktop.P>
Jul 26 16:08:18 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: libostree pull from 'flathub' for runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-515-48-07/x86_64/1.4 complete
                                             security: GPG: summary+commit
                                             security: SIGN: disabled http: TLS
                                             delta: parts: 1 loose: 3
                                             transfer: secs: 0 size: 592 bytes
Jul 26 16:08:15 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: user: Updated runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-515-48-07/x86_64/1.4 from flathub
Jul 26 16:07:38 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: user: Pulled runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-515-48-07/x86_64/1.4 from flathub
Jul 26 16:06:46 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: libostree pull from 'flathub' for runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-515-48-07/x86_64/1.4 complete
                                             security: GPG: summary+commit
                                             security: SIGN: disabled http: TLS
                                             delta: parts: 1 loose: 3
                                             transfer: secs: 0 size: 592 bytes
Jul 26 16:06:46 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: user: Updated runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-510-73-05/x86_64/1.4 from flathub
Jul 26 16:06:12 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]: user: Pulled runtime/org.freedesktop.Platform.GL.nvidia-510-73-05/x86_64/1.4 from flathub
Jul 26 16:05:24 tp-x1e gnome-software[5637]:...

[Henning Sprang (henning)]

And at the same time there are quite a lot of log entried from snapd:

$ journalctl --reverse _COMM=snapd
Jul 26 16:19:21 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:21 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:16 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:15 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:11 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:10 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:07 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:07 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:01 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:19:01 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:18:59 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:18:59 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:13:55 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:13:54 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:13:51 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:13:50 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:13:49 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "clion", "code", "core", "core18", "c>
Jul 26 16:13:48 tp-x1e snapd[2468]: storehelpers.go:722: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "blender", "chromium", "...