[SOLVED] Synaptic and Updater both stopped working

Updater showed the icon in the task bar, so I clicked it and clicked "ok" for it
to update the system ("various updates" it said, along with "security for Ubuntu"
and a few other things).

A second after clicking it the applet on the screen vanished. So I went to
Synaptic Package Manager to do the updates, but it will not invoke at all.

Any ideas?

This is Zorin 9 64 bit running everything stock.

- Slappy

Hi slappy, what happens when you run from the terminal (Menu | Accessories | Terminal):

Code:

sudo apt-get install update && sudo apt-get install dist-upgrade

?

Also, be advised to open Synaptic once more then on the menu bar go to 'Settings | Repositories' and make sure 'download from ...' is set to 'Main Server' before entering that Code in the terminal!

Swarfendor437 wrote:Hi slappy, what happens when you run from the terminal (Menu | Accessories | Terminal):

Code:

sudo apt-get install update && sudo apt-get install dist-upgrade

?

Also, be advised to open Synaptic once more then on the menu bar go to 'Settings | Repositories' and make sure 'download from ...' is set to 'Main Server' before entering that Code in the terminal!

Thank you for your response, Swarfendor437. That code yielded:

"unable to locate package updates"

EDIT:

I want to make it clear that Synaptic will not open. Just nothing.

"Sofware Updater" opened for a split second then nothing happened and it now
will not open.

The "Software Center" opens, but is of course no help because as far as I can
see it does nothing about updates/upgrades.

The last things I saw in Synaptic were error messages to the effect of, "Cannot
upgrade/update until broken packages are fixed!"

I hit the "fix broken packages" and got another error message to the effect of,
"Cannot fix broken packages."

Haven't deleted or removed anything.

Checked the download of the distro and it's good.

So.. I think I might need to re-install this Zorin and see if that crops up again.

Thanks for any help,

- Slappy

How much space is left on your drive?? It can cause all sorts of weird issues.

Code:

df -h

you may need to clean up a little bit.

Linx wrote:How much space is left on your drive?? It can cause all sorts of weird issues.

Code:

df -h

you may need to clean up a little bit.

Big drive (320Gb) and less than 4Gb taken up.

I am not sure what's happened, but I just ran Bleachbit as root and rebooted and
fired up Synaptic Package Manager successfully. There were over a hundred
updates and everything is fine now.



I appreciate very much the reading of my posts and the ideas. I'm sorry I did not
try these little things before coming in and posting this thread. It seems that
there was just something corrupted that Bleachbit as root cleared out; that's all
I can surmise.

Thank you again.

Great distro!!!

- Slappy

Hi,

run the PC in "Recovery Mode" and run "DPKG" per this guide:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2247

NB: A network cable connection is required for the above!.

Glad to hear you got it fixed... weird it happened though.

Linx wrote:Glad to hear you got it fixed... weird it happened though.

Yes it's weird enough that I have been thinking back in an effort to find some
behavior that preceded the whole issue.

The only thing that I can think of is the effort to remove all Bluetooth packages
and that completed without error messages.

Then I later went into Synaptic to grab a game package and that's when the
"fix broken packages" errors started.

Could it have been that I used the "completely remove..." selection instead of
just "remove?"

- Slappy

If things don't get removed correctly they can 'clog the system' - time for the 'Mr Muscle command line'!

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7084&start=10#p33766

(Just replace kingsoft office with the name of the application causing the issue! )

Swarfendor437 wrote:If things don't get removed correctly they can 'clog the system' - time for the 'Mr Muscle command line'!

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=7084&start=10#p33766

(Just replace kingsoft office with the name of the application causing the issue! )

Hey thanks!

I admit that what makes me mad is that I probably caused the problem myself.

Zorin is fine. And by "fine" I mean as in a fine tuned piece of work.

This reminds me of when I was a kid and took apart my dad's watch.

Cheers,

- Slappy