Unable to lock admin directory error problem

[Bumpalot]

Terminal: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

How do I fix this?

[claydoh]

First, make sure you don't have another package manager window or apt-get running somewhere.
The full error would be more helpful, but I think that we can get the right file here

Package managers, and some other programs use a "lock" file to prevent more than one instance of the program from running at the same time. In this instance, it is the package management system (apt and dpkg under the hood). Sometimes this lock file does not go away when there is a crash, the machine looses power, or whatever reason. All we have to do is delete the file that it is complaining about. Thing is, it can reside in a couple different places (I do not know why) but the line or two above the error you pasted would have given the full path in the message.

Something like E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock

This is the offending "stale" lock file, and we would remove it using a file manager with admin privileges, or by:

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
But we need to have the correct path to the file. If the above command does not remove a file (because it does not exist) you may have to run
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade or similar command to see the full error message.

[millusions]

are you runing apt with sudo?

occasionally i get this when update manager is doing some business in taskbar, this mostly happens shortly after system boot.
oh, and mostly with Suse..

yes! im cheating on you Kubuntu ha ha

[claydoh]

are you runing apt with sudo?

occasionally i get this when update manager is doing some business in taskbar, this mostly happens shortly after system boot.
oh, and mostly with Suse..

yes! im cheating on you Kubuntu ha ha

Well, yeah, as the updater is using the package management tools under the hood, this is to be expected.

There is no such thing as cheating, linux is polyamorous

[SteveRiley]

There is no such thing as cheating, linux is polyamorous

You mean it's from...Utah?

[claydoh]

You mean it's from...Utah?

Naw, that would be like running 6 distros at the same time all the time. I think.
My humor module is defective, so no good comeback there