notifier is red during an update, and says an error has occurred

[Chris Moore]

I was running "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" and noticed that the update notifier was still red. Usually it stops being red while apt-get is doing its thing.

I hovered over the red icon, and it popped up a message saying that I should run apt-get because an error had occurred. I was already running apt-get, so I couldn't run another other at the same time.

I waited a while, and the red icon disappeared, while the update was still running.

I'll attach a screenshot.

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

If you would let me attach files to bug reports then I wouldn't have to type this comment.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

Does:
"I waited a while, and the red icon disappeared, while the update was still running."

means that the icon disappears completely? Or that it turns into "gray"?

I *think* I fixed the problem in my local branch and will do a upload today

Thanks,
 Michael

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

I'm pretty sure that the icon disappeared completely, but I don't
remember now. I don't think I would have written that it
"disappeared" if all it did was changed colour.

I noticed a similar behaviour about 12 hours ago, with another big
update. The icon was red during an update, and then went grey while
the update continued to run. I wasn't fast enough to hover over the
red icon or take a screenshot that time though.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

I uploaded a new version and I would be interessted if this problem goes away for you with it.

Thanks,
 Michael

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

Is there an easy way to 'fake' a large update so I can test this?

Or do I just need to wait for the next real update?

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

The notifier told me there were 8 updates, so I clicked it, entered my password and told it to install. The red icon went grey, then after a while it went red again. I took this snapshot. Then after a while it went grey again, and then it disappeared while the updates were still applying. I took another snapshot (which I will attach next). I hovered over the red icon and this time it told me there were 8 updates. It didn't show the error message like it did in the time I first reported this bug.

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

This is the 2nd screenshot I took, after the notifier icon had disappeared. Notice that the 'restart your computer' icon was there all along, since I've not restarted since downgrading and re-upgrading the kernel earlier this afternoon.

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

In case it helps, here are the entries from dpkg.log listing the 8 packages involved in the previous 2 screenshots:

  2006-02-14 17:22:41 status installed initramfs-tools 0.40ubuntu22
  2006-02-14 17:23:06 status installed libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:23:14 status installed libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:23:16 status installed gstreamer0.8-misc 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:23:17 status installed gstreamer0.8-vorbis 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:23:34 status installed gthumb 3:2.7.3-0ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:23:37 status installed libmetacity0 1:2.13.89-0ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:23:48 status installed metacity 1:2.13.89-0ubuntu1

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

And here's the complete content of dpkg.log for the update - it will tell you exactly what was happening at the time the screenshots were taken, by comparing with the clock in the top-right of the screenshots):

  2006-02-14 17:21:26 upgrade initramfs-tools 0.40ubuntu21 0.40ubuntu22
  2006-02-14 17:21:26 status half-configured initramfs-tools 0.40ubuntu21
  2006-02-14 17:21:26 status unpacked initramfs-tools 0.40ubuntu21
  2006-02-14 17:21:26 status half-installed initramfs-tools 0.40ubuntu21
  2006-02-14 17:21:27 status half-installed initramfs-tools 0.40ubuntu21
  2006-02-14 17:21:27 status unpacked initramfs-tools 0.40ubuntu22
  2006-02-14 17:21:27 status unpacked initramfs-tools 0.40ubuntu22
  2006-02-14 17:21:27 upgrade libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:27 status half-configured libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:28 status unpacked libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:28 status half-installed libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:29 status half-installed libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:29 status unpacked libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:29 status unpacked libgstreamer-gconf0.8-0 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:29 upgrade libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:29 status half-configured libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:29 status unpacked libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:29 status half-installed libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:29 status half-installed libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:30 status unpacked libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:30 status unpacked libgstreamer-plugins0.8-0 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:30 upgrade gstreamer0.8-misc 0.8.11-6ubuntu1 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:30 status half-configured gstreamer0.8-misc 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:30 status unpacked gstreamer0.8-misc 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:30 status half-installed gstreamer0.8-misc 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:30 status half-installed gstreamer0.8-misc 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:31 status unpacked gstreamer0.8-misc 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:31 status unpacked gstreamer0.8-misc 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 upgrade gstreamer0.8-vorbis 0.8.11-6ubuntu1 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 status half-configured gstreamer0.8-vorbis 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 status unpacked gstreamer0.8-vorbis 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 status half-installed gstreamer0.8-vorbis 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 status half-installed gstreamer0.8-vorbis 0.8.11-6ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 status unpacked gstreamer0.8-vorbis 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 status unpacked gstreamer0.8-vorbis 0.8.12-1ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 upgrade gthumb 3:2.7.2-0ubuntu3 3:2.7.3-0ubuntu1
  2006-02-14 17:21:32 status half-configured gthumb 3:2.7.2-0ubuntu3
  2006-02-14 17:21:44 status unpacked gthumb 3:2.7.2-0ubuntu3
  2006-02-14 17:21:46 status half-installed gthumb 3:2.7....

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

$ dpkg -l update-{notifier,manager}
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-============================-============================-========================================================================
ii update-manager 0.42.2ubuntu3 GNOME application that manages apt updates
ii update-notifier 0.41.7 Daemon which notifies about package updates

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

Yet again the notifier icon disappeared part way through the installation.

Today I applied 3 sets of updates, and the icon disappeared part-way through the installation all 3 times.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for this additional information.

I can partly reproduce it. The icon sometimes goes red again during the install for packages that take very long to install (like gnome-panel-data or gnome-games-data).

For all other packages I tested I wasn't able to reproduce it. What kind of machine do you use? A particular fast/slow one?

Thanks,
 Michael

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

It's not particularly either I don't think.

It's a 3 year old 2.2GHz Intel P4 laptop with 384Mb RAM and 1Gb swap.

[Chris Moore (dooglus)]

I don't know if this is related to the original report or not, but I
just noticed that if I run a "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" when there
are packages to install, the update-notifier icon goes from red to
grey, and then I'm shown a list of packages that need updating and
asked:

  "Do you want to continue [Y/n]?"

If I leave the question hanging there for about a minute, the notifier
icon goes back to being red, even though the package manager is still
running.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

This is a similiar problem to https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/30759

It's challenging to solve technically unfortunately.

Cheers,
 Michael

[Matt Zimmerman (mdz)]

I'm reviewing bugs targeted to Dapper...Michael, is this truly feasible to fix for 6.06?

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Yes, this is fixed in my local branch, I increased the timeout and fixed a bug that caused it to delay the detection of finished apt operations. This should be sufficient to fix the problem for all but a small (and presumably slow) range of systems.

[Rafaël Carré (funman-videolan)]

is it fixed now ?

(just a thought, would it be possible to monitor the lock file for apt's processes ?)