Update stuck at “configuring unattended-upgrades”

[Kevin M]

On basically fresh install from ubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso; no updates or installs had been applied since installing the OS from the media.

During execution of "Software Updater", it freezes indefinitely while "Installing updates..." at the step marked "Configuring unattended-upgrades."

It appears that this happens if System Settings->Software & Updates->Updates, "Automatically check for updates" has been set to "Never."

If that is instead set to "Daily" and the following are then set in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic then the update succeeds:

APT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";
APT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "1";
APT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "7";
APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";

Someone else had asked about this issue at AskUbuntu. Their question along with my answer (from Kevin) provide some further details:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/851371/update-stuck-at-configuring-unattended-upgrades-software-updater-turned-black/852110#852110

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

It'd be helpful to see /var/log/apt/term.log from a system that encounters this issue.

[Stefan Krause-Kjær (stefan-krausekjaer)]

I have the same issue currently in a Virtual Box VM (5.1.10)
Ubuntu Gnome 16.04.1 LTS 64-bit I've assigned 5.8 GB ram.

I did start the check for update manually, after selecting that I wanted to have dist updates.
The update has now be stalled for 1 day.

I've attached the /var/log/apt/term.log file as requested from the other user

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Ron W6FM (w6fm)]

This is the term.log from a native install of ubuntu-16.04.1-desktop-amd64. It might contain some useful information.

[pleabargain (dennisgdaniels)]

I was trying to fix the files/nautilus NOT working then went down a rabbit hole until I came here. Files/nautilus is still not working and I'm having same problem of unattended upgrades.
I've attached the term.log as well.

here's the error from terminal

@dgd-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  unattended-upgrades
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 36.1 MB/36.1 MB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 linux-image-extra-4.4.0-101-generic amd64 4.4.0-101.124 [36.1 MB]
Fetched 36.1 MB in 5s (6,138 kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 412842 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../unattended-upgrades_0.90ubuntu0.9_all.deb ...
Unpacking unattended-upgrades (0.90ubuntu0.9) over (0.90ubuntu0.8) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu21) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
dpkg: error processing package linux-image-extra-4.4.0-101-generic (--configure):
 package linux-image-extra-4.4.0-101-generic is not ready for configuration
 cannot configure (current status 'half-installed')
Setting up unattended-upgrades (0.90ubuntu0.9) ...
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[Balint Reczey (rbalint)]

Has this issue been seen with the latest unattended-upgrades version on Xenial or on any later release?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for unattended-upgrades (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]