kpackagekit crashes on system-updates refresh after install

[Aere Greenway]

Binary package hint: kpackagekit

After a new install of 10.04 (without an internet connection because I depend on wireless for this machine) from a CD, after getting the wireless working, I entered kpackagekit to get the available updates.

It showed none, so I clicked on refresh. After just about all of the steps involved in refreshing, I got an error indication, saying:

"A problem that we were not expecting has occurred.
Please report this bug with the error description."

The details were as follows:

Error Type:
Error Value: coercing to Unicode: need string or buffer, exceptions.SystemError found
File : /usr/share/PackageKit/helpers/apt/aptBackend.py, line 2216, in
main()
File : /usr/share/PackageKit/helpers/apt/aptBackend.py, line 2213, in main
run(args, options.single)
File : /usr/share/PackageKit/helpers/apt/aptBackend.py, line 2175, in run
backend.dispatcher(args)
File : /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/packagekit/backend.py, line 699, in dispatcher
self.dispatch_command(args[0], args[1:])
File : /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/packagekit/backend.py, line 606, in dispatch_command
self.refresh_cache(force)
File : /usr/share/PackageKit/helpers/apt/aptBackend.py, line 202, in _locked_cache
func(*args, **kwargs)
File : /usr/share/PackageKit/helpers/apt/aptBackend.py, line 1498, in refresh_cache
format_string(error.message))
File : /usr/lib/python2.6/dist-packages/packagekit/backend.py, line 723, in format_string
txt = unicode(text, encoding, errors='replace')

I fear I am out of luck with this problem, because even if it can be fixed, I cannot get any system updates, so it will not get fixed for me.

- Aere Greenway

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: kpackagekit 0.5.4-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun May 2 17:32:15 2010
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100427)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: kpackagekit

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

I think I figured out the problem.

Without the internet connected during installation, language packs didn't get installed.

The details of the error might have been from trying to reference a language-dependent string.

I repeated the installation with the internet connected. I did this by using the live CD version, and configuring my wireless to get it working. Then I clicked on the install icon.

After installing the system with the internet connected, and again refreshing the system updates, this time it worked, and there was no error.

[Risto H. Kurppa (risto.kurppa)]

I have the same problem here. Any ideas what language package is required?

kpackagekit doesn't crash but reports of the problem.

Aere: you do know that you can also upgrade from command line:
sudo apt-get update (to fetch the list of updates)
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade (to install upgrades)

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

I do not know for sure, but my speculation is that they need to install more than will fit on a CD. To solve that (I speculate), they leave off the language packs, then toward the end of the install (knowing which ones are needed), they download just what is needed over the internet (which takes 10 to 15 minutes at my lower-speed DSL). By leaving the language packs off the installation CD, they save a lot of space.

Thanks for the tip on apt-get.

However, I successfully worked-around the problem by re-installing with the internet connected.

- Aere