Update manager does not report the last update correctly

[dinel]

Binary package hint: update-manager

I've just checked for updates using update manager and installed all the available updates. Despite this, update manager reported "The package information was last updated 5 days ago".

This seems to be caused by the fact that one of the software sources I used does not work anymore, so whenever I checked for updates at the end of the checking process, the program displayed an error. As soon as I disabled that source the information displayed is correct "The package information was last updated less than one hour ago".

I would suggest that update-manager displays a more precise message. For example if an check for updates finishes with errors a message like "The package information was last updated less than one hour ago, but finished with errors" is displayed.

My system information:

dinel@dinel-desktop:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu intrepid (development branch)
Release: 8.10

update-manager:
  Installed: 1:0.93.26
  Candidate: 1:0.93.26
  Version table:
 *** 1:0.93.26 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

Could you please give me the output of:
$ sudo apt-get update

Thanks,
 MIchael

[dinel (dinel)]

Attached two files. The first one the output of sudo apt-get update when the repository which is not accessible anymore is not enabled. In that case I see no error. The second one is when I enable the repository which causes the problem. In this case I see an error to standard error.

W: Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/tasque-packagers/ubuntu/dists/intrepid/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz 404 Not Found

E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

[dinel (dinel)]

This is the second file: when I have the repository enabled and update-manager and apt-get update exit with an error. In this case the message in update-manager is not updated correctly.

[Roger Binns (ubuntu-rogerbinns)]

Ah that explains it. Since upgrading to Intrepid a few days ago, the last updated time shown by update manager has been nonsensical. This morning it said I last updated 4 days ago and right now it says the last update was 6 days ago. I have updated and rebooted several times over the last few days to no avail.

One repository with issues for me is VirtualBox - the PUEL version with repositories as detailed at http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads They don't have intrepid yet but I have left that in in my sources.list.d so it will automatically be picked up.

The ddebs for intrepid-{updates,proposed,security} also give errors. It would be nice if instead those repos existed with zero length lists of packages.

In any event update manager shouldn't use the last update time of repositories that are 404 not found as the time of the last update to display!

[claudio (private-claudio)]

I see the same problem (currently it says last update 8 days ago), so I performed an apt-get update and stored the output in the attached file. As you see there is no 404. Yet update-manager still maintains it is outdated.

If anyone familiar with the source of update-manager could tell on base of what information this number of dates is computed, e.g. file date of xyz, then I can look up here whether those file have maybe have a wrong date.

BTW There are two related bug reports. In 233791 the reporter blames it also on unavailable repository. In bug 223505 though the last comment is by a person who reduced sources.list to a one liner (just the main archive) and still gets a wrong indication.

[claudio (private-claudio)]

Sorry, I forgot to add the version numbers:

$ dpkg-query -W apt
apt 0.7.14ubuntu6

$ dpkg-query -W update-manager
update-manager 1:0.93.30

[Antono Vasiljev (antono)]

have the same bug

dpkg-query -W apt && dpkg-query -W update-manager
apt 0.7.14ubuntu6
update-manager 1:0.93.32

[Antono Vasiljev (antono)]

and here is aptitude update log

[papukaija (papukaija)]

I think that this bug should be marked dupplicate of bug 188127.