Comment 2 for bug 551305

I get the same kind of error trying to install packages from the command line. It appears jockey backend is holding the lock. This likely a manifestation of bug #373795 as I'm behind a proxy, though I think software center should be changed to report a less ominous error message for LockFailedException. jockey-backend should be fixed to not make the system unusable if it can't find the package sources, and preferably also fixed to obey system proxy settings (eg bug #373795).

$ sudo aptitude install pidgin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
No candidate version found for pidgin
No candidate version found for pidgin
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information... Done
E: Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Couldn't lock list directory..are you root?

$ sudo lsof /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfs-fuse-daemon file system /home/clowe/.gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
jockey-ba 1355 root 13uW REG 8,1 0 131189 /var/lib/apt/lists/lock

$ ps aux | grep [j]ockey
root 1355 0.1 2.0 15920 10420 ? S 14:54 0:02 /usr/bin/python /usr/share/jockey/jockey-backend --debug -l /var/log/jockey.log

$ sudo jockey-gtk
ERROR:dbus.proxies:Introspect error on :1.55:/DeviceDriver: dbus.exceptions.DBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.NoReply: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.