update-notifier not showing updates

[bog]

update-notifier is not working any more on our 14.04 machines (about 150).
It is not showing available updates and not showing stuff from user.d
This is what i get from debugging:

```
update-notifier --debug-inotify --debug-hooks --debug-misc --debug-uevent
** (update-notifier:5751): DEBUG: trayapplet_create()
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: init_already_seen_hooks
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: reading hook_file: /data/home/mlehsten/.config/update-notifier/hooks_seen
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: check_update_hooks()
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: reading '/var/lib/update-notifier/user.d/' dir
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: investigating file 'apt-file-update'
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: is_hook_relevant(): apt-file-update
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: not relevant: 'apt-file-update'
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: investigating file 'bla-data-center-client'
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: is_hook_relevant(): bla-data-center-client
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: not relevant: 'bla-data-center-client'
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: investigating file 'bla-java8-repo'
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: is_hook_relevant(): bla-java8-repo
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: not relevant: 'bla-java8-repo'
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: investigating file 'incomplete-language-support-gnome.note'
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: is_hook_relevant(): incomplete-language-support-gnome.note
(update-notifier:5751): hooks-DEBUG: not relevant: 'incomplete-language-support-gnome.note'
** (update-notifier:5751): DEBUG: tray_applet_ui_destroy: hook-notifier
** (update-notifier:5751): DEBUG: trayapplet_create()
** (update-notifier:5751): DEBUG: crashreport_check

```

If i run the same with --force i get at least an icon for installing updates.
I tried touching the relevant files like:
sudo touch /var/lib/update-notifier/dpkg-run-stamp
and
sudo touch /var/lib/update-notifier/user.d/bla-java8-repo
but this doesent help either.

Any Suggestions?

Why is it that update-notifier sees all the Hooks a not relevant?
How do i ensure that a Hook is relevant?

P.S:

Just for the record, we have no avahi running.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Please try running the command 'update-notifier --debug-updates'. Thanks in advance.

[bog (martaina)]

Thanks for the advise, i will try this tomorrow.

[bog (martaina)]

So i had a chance to try this today:

if i run update-notifier --debug-updates it does nothing and never comes back.

if i run update-notifier --debug-updates --force i get this:

update-notifier --debug-updates --force
(update-notifier:2638): update-DEBUG: update_check()
(update-notifier:2638): update-DEBUG: /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check returned 28 (security: 3)
(update-notifier:2638): update-DEBUG: is_package_system_locked: /usr/lib/update-notifier/package-system-lockedreturned 0
(update-notifier:2638): update-DEBUG: interval_days: 0

_and_ it shows me the pending updates in a new window. Hurray!

So what to do next? It seems to work only when run with --force.

Thanks for any help!

Bog

[bog (martaina)]

Ok a colleague found out, that the user which is running update-notifier must be part of the admin group. If i add this group to my system and put my user into this group, update-notifier works fine. But on our systems there is noch admin group, even after a fresh install.

[bog (martaina)]

So here is the solution we found. The user needs to be in the sudo group. We configured /etc/security/group.conf accordingly and now it works flawlessly.