Update-notifier crashes synaptic package manager.

[Howard]

The update-notifier is a useful tool - or would be if it didn't crash synaptic package manager whenever I try to use it to update!

Here's the story:

Update-notifier informs  me that there's something new or updatable.
I click on it and get a window of options, with "Update now with synaptic" (or similar message) at the top.
Click on that and synaptic package manager opens up and immediately updates from PASS.
I then click on the updatable package item in the menu on the left.
Synaptic package manager immediately disappears!

If I then re-open synaptic package manager in the usual way everything is OK and I can update.

LXDE on the Dell Netbook 10v

10 min later.  I'm in the middle of installing the latest LXDE onto my wife's computer (a very old desktop from Future shop - a Pastshop model!)  Exactly the same thing happened.  But I notice that update-notifier was one of the updated packages - so maybe it has been fixed.  I have no way of telling until there is something else to update.

[peddlerp]

I've never installed this update-notifer.  I will install and let you know what I see.

Pete

[muungwana]

i have experienced the crash once.I think it happens when the update notifier and synaptic both are running and are accessing some common resource.Try to open synaptic when the update notifier has stopped its activities and the crash may go away.

[daniel]

never heard it...
Exit update-notifier, and try in a terminal

Code: [Select]

update-notifier > $HOME/crashlog_unl.log 2>&1Is update-notifier started, so open synaptic with it, maybe we see what goes wrong.
If update-notifier again crashed synaptic, send me the log file, you find it in your home folder as crashlog_unl.

Regards
Daniel    

EDIT: Do not post the crash file here in forum, if you are a pass user

[Howard]

i have experienced the crash once.I think it happens when the update notifier and synaptic both are running and are accessing some common resource.Try to open synaptic when the update notifier has stopped its activities and the crash may go away.

I don't think I can have expressed myself clearly enough!  It is update-notifier that is opening synaptic.  Opening synaptic directly is OK.  It's reproducible on two systems with the same installation.

[Howard]

Finally got round to re-testing using Daniel's suggestion. 

update-notifier > $HOME/crashlog_unl.log 2>&1

I put in the command and then I had two copies of Update-Notifier running!  Ran it and everything went as it should.  It did not crash synaptic this time, so I guess it was a temporary glitch on my system - or has been fixed in an update.

However I then could not get rid of the two copies of U-N even after re-booting.  My only recourse was to use synaptic to remove it.  After that I could not shutdown or re-boot, there was a brief message telling me that there was another user on the system, which vanished before I had a change to put in the root password.  In the end I had to switch off.

I don't think I'll reinstall U-N, there's clearly either something broken in U-N or something in my setup that it doesn't like.

[muungwana]

There is another update notifier called "qt-update-notifier".

It hasnt found its way yet into the repository but you can get it from the following link: http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,113511.0.html