software-center crashed with ValueError in __init__(): Need either appname or pkgname or request

I'm having the same issue, even after updating to the new mesa, and libgl1, package....

just opened Software Center, tried to search for vpn keyword and the bug windows pop-out.
I can continue to use Software Center as usual

Confirmed based on number of dupes and me-toos.

this bug is affecting me, look at the screenshot how it looks like when searching for a pacakge.

Thanks for your bugreport.

Can you still reproduce this issue on 11.10 or 12.04 ? The latest dupes I got are from previous versions and
the code got updated to no longer do the same call as the old code.

@Laudeci Oliveira (laudeci):
Your screenshot indicates its version 5.0+, could you plase attach your crash file (in /var/crash) or paste the backtrace to this report? do you have a way to reproduce the bug?

Just started the software-center and searched for skype. It crashed with the following stack trace

2012-04-08 22:50:39,881 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'None'
2012-04-08 22:50:39,887 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True
2012-04-08 22:50:40,157 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/widgets/cellrenderers.py", line 385, in do_render
    is_rtl)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/widgets/cellrenderers.py", line 160, in _render_summary
    layout.set_markup(self.model.get_markup(app), -1)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/ui/gtk3/models/appstore2.py", line 185, in get_markup
    app = self.db.get_application(doc)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/database.py", line 401, in get_application
    return Application(appname, pkgname, iconname)
  File "/usr/share/software-center/softwarecenter/db/application.py", line 52, in __init__
    raise ValueError("Need either appname or pkgname or request")
ValueError: Need either appname or pkgname or request

$ apt-cache show software-center
Package: software-center
Priority: optional
Section: gnome
Installed-Size: 4256
Maintainer: Michael Vogt <email address hidden>
Architecture: all
Version: 5.1.14.1

I was installing a list of 4 applications (gnome shell 3.4ubuntu02 was one of them) and I realised I installed gnome do but I wannted synapse. I unpinned gnome do and when I searched synapse it chrashed. I don't know hat app was installing at that moment. I see from the rest that the searching might be the problem. Hope the extra info helps.

Running 12.04 with all updates 2012-04-18 and this error comes up while just browsing and searching for apps. The error comes up multiple times and is really annoying.

The software center itself does not crash, but an apport window pops up saying software center crashed with errors, but it is impossible to cut-and-paste from the window, so I can't post here the errors. Also apport refuses to open a new bug, since this bug already exists.

Thank you very much Muharem, Andrei and Otto, for taking the time and trouble to report back on this issue. Clearly it is still occuring in Precise, so I have reset the status to Confirmed.

Thank you again, your help is much appreciated!

It would be great if you could attach the logs from /home/egon/.cache/software-center/software-center.log if you hit this as it seems like aport is a bit over enthusiastic about preventing more reports. The backtrace in #8 and in the original report are sufficiently different so I would love to see more backtraces to get a better idea what is going on.

I tried various way to reproduce this without much success so far. Any hints how to reproduce are welcome.

I pushed a branch that makes them go away, but I can not say I'm overly happy about it because I would really prefer to find the root cause instead.

Running the most up-to-date release of Precise (updated on 2012-04-24 00UT) this bug appeared on Software Center 5.2 while I was clicking on the Science and Engineering item on the left menu. Nothing happens but the crash. Sometimes the application draws/render the main panel but no icons of applications are shown. Note: I was using the Brazilian Portuguese translation, so I do not know if could be a encoding character problem since it is UTF-8.

Hi,
I'm using Ubuntu 12.10 and this problem showed up when I clicked on "show X technical elements" to show more packages (my Ubuntu is in spanish so it may be something different in english).

encountered this bug after upgrading from ubuntu gnome 13.10 to ubuntu gnome 14.04 beta 2. Was trying to install the precise skype package that I downloaded from the skype website and while in the process of installing i get the crash report.