Unattended upgrades and Discover

[chimak111]

I'm using Kubuntu 19.04 (minimal install option) in a VM:

Operating System: Kubuntu 19.04
KDE Plasma Version: 5.16.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.59.0
Qt Version: 5.12.2
Kernel Version: 5.0.0-19-generic
OS Type: 64-bit
Processor: 1 × Intel Core Processor (Broadwell, no TSX, IBRS)
Memory: 3.9 GiB of RAM

I ran this OS after a few days. The last entry in /var/log/apt/history.log was this:

Start-Date: 2019-06-22  07:35:10
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: intel-microcode:amd64 (3.20190514.0ubuntu0.19.04.3, 3.20190618.0ubuntu0.19.04.1)
End-Date: 2019-06-22  07:35:58

I use Discover to update the system and, when that's done, I also use apt update and apt full-upgrade (just to be sure).

Today, immediately after booting up the system,

• I saw the icon signifying updates available and so I clicked on it to allow Discover to do its thing.
• There were ~106 packages, because of Plasma 5.16.2.
• I provided my password expecting the installation to start.
• Instead, I got the "fetching updates" animation again.
• So I waited till the animation went away and clicked the install button. The same thing happened. Again and again. But I noticed a pop-up which one normally sees when another process is using apt/dpkg/etc.
• So I let things be and closed Discover.

I opened /var/log/apt/history.log and saw that unattended upgrades were in progress.

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:35:03
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: libmagickcore-6.q16-6-extra:amd64 (8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2, 8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2.2)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:35:09

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:35:20
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Install: linux-headers-5.0.0-19:amd64 (5.0.0-19.20, automatic), linux-image-5.0.0-19-generic:amd64 (5.0.0-19.20, automatic), linux-modules-extra-5.0.0-19-generic:amd64 (5.0.0-19.20, automatic), linux-headers-5.0.0-19-generic:amd64 (5.0.0-19.20, automatic), linux-modules-5.0.0-19-generic:amd64 (5.0.0-19.20, automatic)
Upgrade: linux-headers-generic:amd64 (5.0.0.17.18, 5.0.0.19.20), linux-image-generic:amd64 (5.0.0.17.18, 5.0.0.19.20), linux-generic:amd64 (5.0.0.17.18, 5.0.0.19.20)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:37:51

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:37:53
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: imagemagick-6-common:amd64 (8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2, 8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2.2)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:37:59

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:04
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: policykit-desktop-privileges:amd64 (0.20, 0.20ubuntu19.04.1)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:07

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:13
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: firefox-locale-en:amd64 (67.0.3+build1-0ubuntu0.19.04.1, 67.0.4+build1-0ubuntu0.19.04.1)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:18

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:28
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: imagemagick:amd64 (8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2, 8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2.2)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:31

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:41
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: imagemagick-6.q16:amd64 (8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2, 8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2.2)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:54

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:38:56
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: libmagickcore-6.q16-6:amd64 (8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2, 8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2.2)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:39:01

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:39:08
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: firefox:amd64 (67.0.3+build1-0ubuntu0.19.04.1, 67.0.4+build1-0ubuntu0.19.04.1)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:39:35

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:39:37
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: libmysofa0:amd64 (0.6~dfsg0-2, 0.6~dfsg0-2ubuntu0.19.04.1)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:39:40

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:39:51
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: linux-libc-dev:amd64 (5.0.0-17.18, 5.0.0-19.20)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:39:59

Start-Date: 2019-06-26  07:40:10
Commandline: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
Upgrade: libmagickwand-6.q16-6:amd64 (8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2, 8:6.9.10.14+dfsg-7ubuntu2.2)
End-Date: 2019-06-26  07:40:14

When I opened Discover a little later, I got the remaining packages installed without any issue.

As one can see from the timestamps, I don't have a fast internet connection. Which is why I noticed what I did: Discover going into a sort of "loop" that could confuse/alarm users who (a) don't have that much experience and (b) have a slow enough net connection to be affected by Discover being put on "hold" because unattended upgrades were in progress.

My question: would it be possible to have Discover generate a friendly notification telling the user that unattended upgrades are in progress and to be patient or something like that? Could the repeated fetching of updates and the message that another process is using apt/dpkg be handled differently?

I'm aware that this isn't a common occurrence and that it may not affect users with fast net connections but I just thought I'd mention it.

[chimak111]

I just checked a VM of Ubuntu 18.04. The icon prompting the user to update appears after the unattended upgrade complete. I checked this by watching top.

[externa1]

hi
I have a high speed internet connection and also had same issue some times so i deactivated the unattanded updates through:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure --priority=low unattended-upgrades

and checked with :

apt-config dump APT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade

[Flavio R. Cavalcanti]

I use to totally disable or remove unnattended-upgrades; and also to remove PackageKit (Discover goes away too).

So I can manually run "sudo apt update" to see what is new and how is my connection speed.

Or I can run Synaptic, reload, mark and apply updates.

Just 1 thing at a time.

Now, at Kubuntu 19.10 (development branch) Chromium .deb has been replaced by .snap2 package ─ and at the begin of each new session, things out of my control do happen again.