funny output when a package gets downgraded via pinning

[Steve Langasek]

Binary package hint: update-manager

I don't remember having seen this with previous iterations of update-manager, but following the 8.04 release it seems that update-manager always claims that I "can install 1 update" even when no updates are visible. 'Check' shows nothing new, and 'Install Updates' returns after spinning for a bit.

The update-notifier icon doesn't show up on the desktop, so this is mainly an issue at the end of an upgrade system where the UI is left active and pretends that there's more work that can be done.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

Could you please attach the output of /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check and "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check -p" (both run from a terminal window like gnome-terminal?

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

$ /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check && echo
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0;0
$

$ /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check -p
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
$

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

ah, here's the reason. In /etc/apt/preferences, I have (for purposes of testing out 8.04.1 CD builds):

Package: ssl-cert
Pin: version 1.0.14-0ubuntu2
Pin-Priority: 900

which leads to the following:

$ apt-cache policy ssl-cert
ssl-cert:
  Installed: 1.0.14-0ubuntu2.1
  Candidate: 1.0.14-0ubuntu2
  Package pin: 1.0.14-0ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 1.0.14-0ubuntu2.1 900
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
        500 http://mirrors.cat.pdx.edu hardy-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.0.14-0ubuntu2 900
        500 file: hardy/main Packages

And apt-get dist-upgrade will cause this package to be downgraded, whereas update-manager doesn't act on it. If I drop the preferences file, then update-manager is happy again.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for the additional information.

I mark it low priority for now as the downgrade case is pretty uncommon (also I agree that its a pretty bad user experience).

[Robert Roth (evfool)]

Is this still an issue in Natty? If I pin a package, it gets displayed in update-manager, but displayed with a grey checkbox, so it's not selectable?
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