Muon Update Notifications in 12.04

[bra|10n]

I seem to be continually plagued with issues regarding update-notifications not appearing in the system tray. I clean installed 12.04 on Saturday without any issues and I am yet to receive notification of any new updates via the tray icon.

I have a clean install here working well, with the exception of the Ubuntu font weights not being applied correctly.

Would somebody be kind enough to detail the behaviour of notifications on their system, preferably 12.04.

[OneLine]

Does you system know ?

Does your system know that there are updates available ? Do a query with the command:

/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check --human-readable

If there are, there shoud be a notification

[tdockery97]

I installed the 02/19 daily build yesterday evening, and 5 minutes ago the system dutifully notified me of updates. They installed without incident using the update manager, so all is well.

[bra|10n]

The first question should probably be how frequent is Muon checking for updates, the fastest it can de set to is once a day.

Teunis thank you for your reply. I was aware that this is the case.

Or after manually invoking a search for updates in Muon. I just checked, there was one available (GsmartControl) and the notification icon duly popped up.

This is definitely not the case for me unfortunately.

As you can see, updates manually invoked in Muon with no update notification icon (Updates1.png). Again some time later, without applying update from updates1.png (Updates2.png).

/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check --human-readable

OneLine cheers. This may come in handy later on.

From what I have been able to gather, Muon checks the last update-time from dpkg-run-stamp (to calculate 24hr cycle)(Timestamp1.png).

Here I believe you have my last update-time and date. And assuming I am correct, my next update check should occur at 08:41 Tuesday 21 February. This file should show Today 08:41 (Timestamp2.png).

Update

After applying the 11 updates shown in Updates2.png, dpkg-run-stamp still shows "08:41 Yesterday".

Perhaps someone might be so kind as to confirm Update-Notifications behave !similarly on their system.

[OneLine]

Looking how it is working at here - it is a bit long : http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...-notifications

[bra|10n]

Looking how it is working at here - it is a bit long : http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...-notifications

OneLine many thanks for your detailed post linked above.

Let me say from the outset that the more I look into this issue, the more out of my depth I find myself.

However reading through your post and trying to follow the chain-links at each stage, it seems my problems occur between points 6 and 7. Or to try and put this into words, between update-notifier-common doing it's thing and initiating update-notifier-kde. The vital step here as I understand is for the update-sucess-stamp file to be "touched" (i.e dated with the last update time). It appears in my case that this is not happening. While I am certain I do not follow your post entirely, it appears everything up to point 6. is working correctly, based solely on the fact that Muon manually invoked functions as intended.

Today was spent looking back through some older 'related' bugs that at the time used Synaptic and KPK for instance, I could only find two likely causes that might explain this problem:

1. A scenario where a package list is refreshed but when 1 or more mirrors or repositories are temporarily unreachable. Interestingly these checks are still reported 'down-the-chain' to update-notifier-kde as "updated". The example was given of a repository that no longer existed due to a new release 'coming of age'. Another where internet connectivity was actually non-existant. The main crux here is that in both these instances, checks effectively reported "no change", and therefore no "touch" was performed. So if this is indeed the case, the notion "update-notifications will only show when there are actual updates are available" may not be entirely reliable.


2. The other possible cause was in high level geek-speak, but involved multiple packages with the same name, perhaps others in a state of transition. It highlighted an instance where a user was trying to install a package, lets say xyz where there existed two versions; one stable, the other unstable. The results of his apt-get install xyz returned "unable to locate package xyz", yet there existed not one but two packages at that particular moment. Again, it is not these apparent errors of themselves that caught my attention, but rather the consequences felt further down-the-chain.

So at this point I'm none the wiser, naturally.
Perhaps though this is not entirely true...

A Konsole will report errors!

[OneLine]

...it appears everything up to point 6.

I think that this should work like this:

1) The anacron is updating the package database.
2) The update-notifier-common (it seems to be a bunch of script files) is writing the:

/var/lib/update-notifier/dpkg-run-stamp
/var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available
/var/lib/apt/periodic/update-success-stamp

3) The update-notifier-kde is looking those files (update_listener.cpp) and if there are changes it will read the information from the /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check (update_worker.cpp).

By the update-notifier-kde/debian/README.update-notifier-kde:

Checks for updates are handled by update-notifier-common.
...
As update-notifier-kde only acts as a frontend for
update-notifier-common...

Something to try

Remove the:
/var/lib/update-notifier/dpkg-run-stamp
/var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available
/var/lib/apt/periodic/update-success-stamp

Execute:

sudo /usr/lib/update-notifier/update-motd-updates-available --force

This should (working here) write the /var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available and launch the KDE notifier.

[bra|10n]

OneLine,

Clarification needed:

You have a file called updates-available located in /user/var/lib/update-notifier?

[OneLine]

Clarification needed:

You have a file called updates-available located in /user/var/lib/update-notifier?

Yes and no. It is: /var/lib/update-notifier/ - without the /user/:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2012-02-21 18:10 fsck-at-reboot
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2012-02-21 08:47 release-upgrade-available
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 62 2012-02-21 18:34 updates-available
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2011-12-23 21:20 user.d

The " /var/lib/update-notifier/updates-available " is an ASCII text file and it has:

25 packages can be updated.
0 updates are security updates.

The KDE is notifying:




The force option - The" /usr/lib/update-notifier/update-motd-updates-available " is a script file and it has

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# helper for update-motd


# poor mans force
if [ "$1" = "--force" ]; then
    NEED_UPDATE_CHECK=yes
fi
.
.
.

[bra|10n]

Yes and no. It is: /var/lib/update-notifier/ - without the /user/:

Sorry for my error.

I ask again re the existence of an updates-available file?

The content of my /var/lib/update-notifier/ folder;

1 folder (user.d)
1 file (dpkg-run-stamp)

None hidden.

Update

With some confidence I will say you do indeed have such a file. And not only you, but dare I say everyone else without this issue!



OneLine thank you, thank you, thank you!

It seems my install was missing the updates-available file. But why? Nevermind!