synaptic always crashes on search

[mjau]

Search for something (not quicksearch), doesn't matter what. Synaptic instantly crashes, every time. This didn't happen in 11.04. (I'd expect Synaptic to show search results in stead of crashing.)

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10

$ apt-cache policy synaptic
synaptic:
  Installert: 0.75.2ubuntu8
  Kandidat: 0.75.2ubuntu8
  Versjonstabell:
 *** 0.75.2ubuntu8 0
        500 http://no.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: synaptic 0.75.2ubuntu8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Oct 13 20:23:17 2011
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=nb_NO:nb:no_NO:no:nn_NO:nn:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=nb_NO.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: synaptic
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-13 (0 days ago)

[Andrew P. (japoth)]

I'm seeing the same problem in a fully-updated installation of Ubuntu 10.04.1. The problem seems to have started just recently. Synaptic Package Manager crashes every time upon entry of the second character in the Search box.

[Andrew P. (japoth)]

Correction to my earlier comment (#2): The crash happens when I enter the second character in the "Quick search" box. If I click on the "Search" button (with the binoculars), I can enter search terms and Synaptic Package Manager doesn't crash.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Thespian (jesse-mundis)]

Exactly like comment #2, the second character in quicksearch crashes synaptic. This is a recent change in behavior, it used to work fine. fully patched 10.04 install

[Andrew P. (japoth)]

Due to this fault with Synaptic Package Manager and a nearly-dead Ubuntu Software Center that I was unable to resurrect, I decided to rebuild my system with Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS (issued February 2012) from the LiveCD on another hard drive four weeks ago. Synaptic has not shown the above described crash problem in this new installation. Before committing to building the new 10.04.4 LTS installation, I re-installed Ubuntu Software Center and Synaptic Package Manager from the Canonical Lucid Lynx repositories, but it did not fix the problems.

My problems with Synaptic and Software Center started in early December 2011 after a troublesome removal of OpenOffice.org and installation of LibreOffice 3 in its place. Neither the uninstallation of OpenOffice.org nor the installation of LibreOffice went smoothly and it took two attempts on my previous 10.04.1 installation. After the first installation of LibreOffice failed, I removed it with Synaptic and it seems to have removed software that it should not have, including my CUPS PDF printer driver and possibly a few more things on which Ubuntu Software Center and Synaptic depended. On the second attempt, installation of LibreOffice succeeded, but left Synaptic and Software Center crippled, possibly because LibreOffice installed modified or down-level libraries, which then caused problems with Synaptic and Software Center. I feel that part of the responsibility lies with the poor job that the folks at The Document Foundation did with packaging LibreOffice 3.x for Debian/Ubuntu. The package installation required use of the GNOME Terminal to manually execute commands (sudo dpkg -i *.deb), something that is quite unusual for Debian and Ubuntu software installations. I have LibreOffice 3.4.5 running on 10.04.4 LTS now, but it required doctoring the .tar.gz archive to get it to install properly, including the online LibreOffice Help. Also, in view of my experience, I've disabled the LibreOffice PPA in Software Sources, to prevent any attempts at software "upgrades" from that organisation until they learn to package software correctly for Debian/Ubuntu.

[Robert Roth (evfool)]

 Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug #880493, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.