update-manager hung in /var/lib/dpkg/info/libapache2-mod-php5.postinst

[Dan Kegel]

On what I thought was a somewhat up-to-date ubuntu 14.10 system, I noticed that lxc was out of date, so I ran update-manager in a terminal.

After half an hour, it hung. The last line in /var/log/apt/term.log was

Setting up libapache2-mod-php5 (5.5.12+dfsg-2ubuntu4.1) ...

The window where I ran update-manager shows

...
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Gnome
debconf: (Can't locate Gtk2.pm in @INC (you may need to install the
Gtk2 module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl
/usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.20.1
/usr/local/share/perl/5.20.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.20
/usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.20
/usr/share/perl/5.20 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at
/usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Gnome.pm line 91.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Dialog
debconf: DbDriver "passwords" warning: could not open
/var/cache/debconf/passwords.dat: Permission denied
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Gnome
debconf: (Can't locate Gtk2.pm in @INC (you may need to install the
Gtk2 module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl
/usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.20.1
/usr/local/share/perl/5.20.1 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.20
/usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.20
/usr/share/perl/5.20 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at
/usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Gnome.pm line 91.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Dialog
Use of uninitialized value $template in exists at
/usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Template.pm line 81, <> line 5.
Use of uninitialized value $item in exists at
/usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Cache.pm line 39, <> line 5.
Use of uninitialized value $item in exists at
/usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Cache.pm line 39, <> line 5.

Rebooting to the commandline, asking dpkg to finish configuring, and rebooting again, brought the system back.

Here's the interesting-ish part of the output of ps:

dank@dank:~$ ps augxw | grep -v 'Jan22' | grep root
root 3868 0.0 0.0 19776 332 ? SNs 00:26 0:00 /usr/sbin/uuidd
root 10772 0.0 0.0 4440 644 pts/28 SN+ 00:27 0:00 /bin/sh /var/lib/dpkg/info/libapache2-mod-php5.postinst configure 5.5.9+dfsg-1ubuntu4.5
root 10774 0.0 0.2 72336 14928 pts/28 SN+ 00:27 0:00 /usr/bin/perl -w /usr/share/debconf/frontend /usr/bin/ucf /usr/share/php5/php.ini-production /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
root 10802 0.0 0.0 25328 1200 pts/28 SN+ 00:27 0:00 /bin/bash /usr/bin/ucf /usr/share/php5/php.ini-production /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
...
root 28351 0.0 0.1 22484 9628 pts/28 SNs+ 00:23 0:01 /usr/bin/dpkg --status-fd 73 --configure libc6-i386:amd
64 libc-dev-bin:amd64 linux-libc-dev:amd64 libc6-dev:amd64
libc6-dbg:amd64 libpcrecpp0:amd64 libpcre3-dev:amd64 libsepol1:amd64 libsepol1-dev:amd64 libselinux1-dev:amd64 libncursesw5:amd64
libtinfo-dev:amd64 libncurses5-dev:amd64 libbz2-dev
:amd64 bzip2:amd64 libreadline6-dev:amd64 acl:amd64 attr:amd64
comerr-dev:amd64 libgpg-error-dev:amd64 libgcrypt11-dev:amd64 libpng12-0:amd64 libpng12-0:i386 libpng12-dev:amd64
libslang2-dev:amd64 libapt-inst1.5:amd64 libbsd0:amd64 libestr0:amd64 libexpat1:amd64 libexpat1:i386 libexpat1-dev:amd64
libffi6:amd64 libffi6:i386 libffi-dev:amd64 libgmp10:amd64 libgmpxx4ldbl:amd64 libgmp-dev:amd64 libmagic1:amd64 file:amd64
libmpdec2:amd64 libnettle4:amd64 libnewt0.52:amd64 libp11-kit0:i386 libp11-kit0:amd64 p11-kit-modules:i386 p11-kit-modules:amd64
libp11-kit-dev:amd64 libpopt0:amd64 libssl1.0.0:amd64 libssl1.0.0:i386 libpython3.4-minimal:amd64
python3.4-minimal:amd64 mime-support:all libsqlite3-0:amd64
libsqlite3-0:i386 libpython3.4-stdlib:amd64 python3.4:amd64 libpython3.4:amd64
libssl-doc:all libssl-dev:amd64 ntpdate:amd64 libsigsegv2:amd64 m4:amd64 autoconf:all libglib2.0-0:amd64 libglib2.0-0:i386
libdconf1:amd64 dconf-service:amd64 dconf-gsettings-backend:amd64 libpython2.7-minimal:amd64 python2.7-minimal:amd64
libpython2.7-stdlib:amd64 python2.7:amd64 python-minimal:amd64 libpython-stdlib:amd64 python:amd64 libglib2.0-data:all
libglib2.0-bin:amd64 libtimedate-perl:all libdpkg-perl:all patch:amd64 make:amd64 binutils:amd64 dpkg-dev:all
pkg-config:amd64 libglib2.0-dev:amd64 libpython2.7:amd64 libpython2.7-dev:amd64 python2.7-dev:amd64 python-all:amd64
libpython-dev:amd64 python-dev:amd64 python3-minimal:amd64 libpython3-stdlib:amd64 dh-python:all python3:amd64 devscripts:amd64
libdbus-1-3:amd64 libdbus-1-3:i386 libdbus-1-dev:amd64 libpciaccess0:amd64 libpciaccess0:i386 libdrm2:amd64 libdrm2:i386
libdrm-intel1:amd64 libdrm-intel1:i386 libdrm-radeon1:amd6
4 libdrm-radeon1:i386 libdrm-nouveau2:amd64 libdrm-nouveau2:i386
libdrm-dev:amd64 libgdbm3:amd64 libjson-c2:amd64 libjson-c2:i386 libkmod2:amd64 libnih1:amd64 libnih1:i386 libnih-bus1:amd64
libnih-dbus1:i386 libprocps3:amd64 libsemanage-common:all libsemanage1:amd64 module-init-tools:all python3-cairo:amd64
libgirepository-1.0-1:amd64 gir1.2-glib-2.0:amd64
python3-gi:amd64 python3-gi-cairo:amd64 gir1.2-freedesktop:amd64
ucf:all fontconfig-config:all libfreetype6:amd64 libfreetype6:i386 libfontconfig1:amd64 libfontconfig1:i386
libfreetype6-dev:amd64 libfontconfig1-dev:amd64 libicu52:amd64 icu-devtools:amd64 libicu-dev:amd64 libgraphite2-3:amd64
libharfbuzz0b:amd64 libharfbuzz-icu0:amd64 libharfbuzz-gobject0:amd
64 libharfbuzz-dev:amd64 fontconfig:amd64 libpango-1.0-0:amd64
libpangoft2-1.0-0:amd64 libpangocairo-1.0-0:amd64 libx11-data:all libx11-6:amd64 libx11-6:i386 libxft2:amd64
libpangoxft-1.0-0:amd64 gir1.2-pango-1.0:amd64 libxdmcp6:amd64 libxdmcp6:i386 x11proto-core-dev:all libxdmcp-dev:amd64
x11proto-input-dev:all xtrans-dev:all libx11-dev:amd64 libxft-dev:amd
64 libpango1.0-dev:amd64 libpango1.0-0:amd64 xkb-data:all
libx11-doc:all libatk1.0-data:all libatk1.0-0:amd64 gir1.2-atk-1.0:amd64 libatk1.0-dev:amd64 libxml2:amd64 libxml2:i386
libxml2-dev:amd64 libcroco3:amd64 libjasper1:amd64 libjbig0:amd64 libjbig0:i386 libtiff5:amd64 libtiff5:i386
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common:all libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0:amd64 librsvg2-2:amd64
librsvg2-common:amd64 gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0:amd64 gir1.2-rsvg-2.0:amd64
libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev:amd64 librsvg2-dev:amd64 libjasper-dev:amd64 libjbig-dev:amd64 libtiffxx5:amd64 libtiff5-dev:amd64
libvte-2.90-common:all libvte-2.90-9:amd64 gir1.2-vte-2.90:amd64 python-apt-common:all python3-apt:amd64 python-apt:amd64
aptdaemon-data:all python3-pkg-resources:all iso-codes:all python3-aptdaemon:all python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets:all
libpackagekit-glib2-16:amd64 gir1.2-packagekitglib-1.0:amd64 python3-aptdaemon.pkcompat:all aptdaemon:all
libasprintf0c2:amd64 libasprintf-dev:amd64 gettext-base:amd64 libjava
scriptcoregtk-3.0-0:amd64 myspell-en-za:all myspell-en-gb:all hunspell-en-us:all

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1414070/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Dan Kegel (dank)]

I now think the system was halfway between Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10.

This may be a dup of bug 979661.

[Dan Kegel (dank)]

gaah, my fingers are living in the past. I meant 14.04 and 14.10.