update-manager never appears on lubuntu precise > trusty

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

same here. also i notice that apt-get update shows there are updates available, as does running update-manager. i even checked to see if the settings are still set to check daily and they are.

FYI, update-manager will run fine if you start it from the start menu

Karl and Walter; speaking with mvo on this subject I was able to get update-manager to work properly on my box, as well as display your symptoms.

I believe you need to set the 'for other updates' setting to 'display immediately'. check the setting page for update manager, you will see the option. make sure everything is set to check daily and display immediately. Then reboot your box, and everything should work as expected.

assuming by cron job we mean running the /etc/cron.daily/update-notifier-common script then it does not produce any results.

however, it's clear this does not replicate the native scenario, as after changing display immediately on other updates, i did get update-manager to pop up after running apt-get update.

so i think this bug is done.

on another note, though: update-manager tells me i have 10 packages to be upgraded, while apt-get upgrade tells me i have 0 to be upgraded and 4 to be held back. uh…

OK, I obviously don't know enough about software-updater to be useful here. But IMHO more work needs to be done.

I have installed (fresh) Lubuntu 13.10, and despite setting software-properties-common (repositories) to check for updates daily and display security updates immediately (weekly for other updates), I have never once had Update Manager (excuse me - "Software Updater", as it now seems to be called...) pop up on my screen - I have had to manually select it from the main menu; just now I was using Synaptic, and noticed some pkgs. had "update available" symbols by them. I had had Lubuntu 12.04, and almost every day had UM pop up saying something was available; now - never.

---------------------------------
scott@scott-ASUS-M2N68-AM-PLUS:~$ uname -a
Linux scott-ASUS-M2N68-AM-PLUS 3.11.0-13-generic-tuxonice #20~ppa1-Ubuntu SMP Fri Nov 8 11:40:45 UTC 2013 i686 athlon i686 GNU/Linux

scott@scott-ASUS-M2N68-AM-PLUS:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 13.10
Release: 13.10
Codename: saucy

update-manager-core 1:0.194.1
software-properties-common 0.92.28
software-properties-gtk 0.92.28
python3-software-properties 0.92.28

I just manually started update-manager, and as you will see from this next screenshot.
there WERE security updates (there usually are).

I since changed both categories of updates ("security" and "other") to "Display Immediately", and from then (2013-11-24) until now 2013-12-14 Update Manager has never popped up to offer to inform me of updates to install.

Question: If in the "Software & Updates" window (either directly from Lubuntu's Preferences menu or from Synaptic), "Automatically check for updates" is set to "Daily", when, exactly, does it check?
Upon booting? Then it should have checked many times from then until now...
Were it set to check at 11:59:59 pm, then it would never check, as I am not up at midnight.

[Here's a weird thing... I just brought up Synaptic, and while the Preferences "Software & Updates" window shows "Display Immediately" for both categories of updates ("security" and "other"), Synaptic had "Display Weekly" for "Other". I assumed that both places accessed the same program and data - this implies that there are two places that the information is being stored. Probably not a good idea.
This does NOT explain my problem, however, as it has been several weeks since I updated, and still nothing reported from UpdateManager.]

I have noticed that this is ultimately a Gnome app, so I will look and see if there is a bug there for this, and add to that, or enter a new one...

Spoke too soon... Synaptic says: "GNOME application that manages apt updates". but searching at bugzilla.gnome.org for "update manager" or "update-manager"
yields nothing related to update-manager, so if it is a Gnome project, I am mystified as to why one cannot find it there...

This is a workaround for apparently the same problem as Scott Cowles Jacobs, not receiving automatic update notifications in Lubuntu 13.10

I didn't get updates for a few weeks (last auto update 9 December 2013, after 8 December 2014 update-notifier was updated, until I manually updated about 4 January 2014.)

So I put this line in Preferences > Default applications for LXSession > Autostart > + Add

@/usr/bin/update-notifier

That line is added to ~/.config/lxsession/Lubuntu/autostart (so it could also be added by editing that autostart file directly.)

I used the line, ``$ ps -ef | grep "update" `` in LXTerminal to check that update-notifier wasn't running at first, and that it could run as a background process using the command ``$ update-notifier & `` and that it was running after I added it to autostart and restarted.

Doing just that didn't seem to work, because there were updates waiting when I checked by manually starting Software Updater after a day.

So I also installed python3-aptdaemon-pkcompat because it was on the "missing recommends" list, although I didn't know if that was correct to do, because installing that using Synaptic causes packagekit to be removed, which seems like it might defeat the purpose of having PackageKit compatibility in Python 3. (The situation of having to choose which of those packages to have installed, with both being recommended but not both allowed, seems to have started after I installed a Gnome 3 desktop environment then uninstalled it back when I was using Ubuntu+Lubuntu 13.04 before I upgraded Ubuntu+Lubuntu to 13.10.)

After I had my system set up that way for over a day, I finally got my first automatic update notification in a month.

The package update-notifier has some Python 3 files in it, and runs as a daemon and gets messages resulting from a file in etc/cron.daily named apt, according to some of the read me information in the update-notifier complete package, so maybe it helps to have python3-aptdaemon-pkcompat installed. Maybe packagekit is just a different frontend of the actual PackageKit system that doesn't matter unless certain applications are calling it to get updates that are specific to those applications.

This is just a workaround. I haven't found a configuration file that would cause Lubuntu to run update-notifier normally. On the list of programs to start at startup in Desktop Session Settings, Update Notifier is checked, but I don't know if it should be or what effect that checkmark has.

--->sde

The solution for me turned out to be very simple:

I found that there was a:
 Preferences > Default applications for LXSession > Options > Updates
option, but that it had "Activate Updates" as blank. When I clicked on the arrows at the right side of the the [button?], I noticed there was an option "update-notifier".
I selected that, and then clicked on "Apply" and "Reload" (don't know what that does), and when I exited the app, there was SoftwareUpdates on my panel.
The next day it appeared as well.

One difference from previous releases - it does not blink the app tab, which I always liked before, as it drew attention to itself ( as it often shares the panel with many other tabs, and gets lost in the crowd).

Query #1: Do you suppose that it was a design decision to not have "update-notifier" as the default option, or just an oversight (bug)?

Query #2: I notice that there is another option (other than "Other") for "Activate Updates" : "build-in". Does anyone have any idea what that is/does?

Well, now that I have installed Lubuntu 13.04, I have the same problem again, but the software updater app has changed, and I don't know yet what to do.

In the Autostart section, under Known Applications, Update Notifier is present, and the Enabled box is checked (I did not check it - it was already checked). No updates have been presented as yet.

I will try to add "update-notifier" it to the "Manual autostarted applications", as I have had to do for nm-applet and xscreensaver, and we'll see...

I don't know if it has any option switches - I find nothing when I try man or info...

-Scott

Yes, that seems to have done the trick.

I don't know why update-notifier doesn't run until one enters it in the "Manual autostarted applications" section, since in the Autostart section under Known Applications, the Update Notifier / Enabled box is checked, but ...

Seems to me that this poses a security risk, eg; firefox was just updated which was presented as a security-update in both Ubuntu and Ubuntu GNOME.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2222325

This bug still seems active in Lubuntu 14.04. I have never been prompted to install any updates. I manually ran the updater a couple times and got batches of updates that way.

Although I found today that a manual run of Software Updater offered some updates *FOR* Software Updater, so perhaps this will fix the problem.

Please disregard the previous screenshot : probably phased updates. Thanks to Dale Visser on the lubuntu mailing list.

I've recently installed lubuntu 14.04 on a coupla' older PCs and the update notifier icon fails to display in the panel on either of them. I do however see the process 'update-notifier' running (via 'htop'). If I kill the process and start it manually, sometimes I can see a blink or flicker in the panel around the systray but never an actual persistent icon. I've tried unticking "Update Notifier" in the "autostart" preferences and then manually adding "update-notifier" but still no icon. Even after refresh/reboot. However, checking back in 'htop' shows four 'update-notifier' processes running.

Ah, it occurs to me that my expectations are likely based on Linux Mint's persistent update status icon, rather than mainsream *buntu distros. Perhaps the lubuntu update notifier is only intended to appear for when pending updates are actively available? Leads me to question as to what display and behaviour am I supposed to be seeing?

Hi,

I have several installs of Ubuntu Openbox Remix (Bento, a custom version which works very well besides that).

I would guess that this issue does not affect only Lubuntu or Bento, but also other versions. I had a talk with a guy on IRC a few days ago, he is running Ubuntu Gnome 14.04 and he had not been warned since some time, and had 130 packages available for update.

One of the installs I have, (a x86_64 version, on a netbook Samsung N210, which is not often used) has not been yet updated since 12.04.1, so I thought I would test how it goes with update-notifier and update-manager.

I just started the distribution, and **a while after**, update-notifier **appeared**. It's not instant, it does take some time!

So I looked at the packages which will be updated, and update-notifier, update-manager, and update-manager-common do appear in the list of packages to be updated.

The versions before updating are as follow:
**************************************
[root@bento64:/etc/apt]# apt-cache policy update-notifier
update-notifier:
  Installé : 0.119ubuntu8.6
  Candidat : 0.119ubuntu8.6
 Table de version :
 *** 0.119ubuntu8.6 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.119ubuntu8.1 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages

[root@bento64:/etc/apt]# apt-cache policy update-manager
update-manager:
  Installé : 1:0.156.14.12
  Candidat : 1:0.156.14.13
 Table de version :
     1:0.156.14.13 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
 *** 1:0.156.14.12 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:0.156.14.5 0
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security/main amd64 Packages
     1:0.156.14 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages

[root@bento64:/etc/apt]# apt-cache policy update-manager-core
update-manager-core:
  Installé : 1:0.156.14.12
  Candidat : 1:0.156.14.13
 Table de version :
     1:0.156.14.13 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
 *** 1:0.156.14.12 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:0.156.14.5 0
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-security/main amd64 Packages
     1:0.156.14 0
        500 http://fr.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages
[root@bento64:/etc/apt]#

**************************************

Here is the sources.list used: http://paste.ubuntu.com/7759622/

and here is what will be updated in a moment:
*****************************************

[root@bento64:/etc/apt]# LANG=C apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  apt apt-transport-https apt-utils bsdutils ca-certificates dpkg file firefox firefox-locale-en firefox-locale-fr gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-2.0 gir1.2-gtk-3.0 gnupg
  gnupg-agent gnupg2 gpgv grub-common grub-pc grub-pc-bin grub2-common gtk2-engines-pixbuf icedtea-6-jre-cacao icedtea-6-jre-jamvm ifupdown initramfs-tools initramfs-tools-bin
  iproute libapt-inst1...

> I will not perform/ I meant "I will now perform the update". (sorry, my finger went to the wrong key).

I can see this bug on a new install of Lubuntu 14.04:no notifications for updates are ever seen,even if there's indeed hundreds of packages to be updated (easily verified either manually launching the GUI update manager or with apt-get -s upgrade) and update-notifier has been added to start up applications.
The update preferences are set to display immediately available updates.

Just to double check the status of this bug in Lubuntu Trusty I installed Lubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release i386 (20140416.2) choosing to download updates during installation and, as expected, no notification of available updates ever appeared after booting into the fresh install. So I opened synaptic, chose Custom Filters > Marked Changes and intentionally deselected Firefox, then applied all other available updates, and rebooted when the updates were complete.

To my surprise I was then presented with an update notification in the panel as it should be, so this appears to be fixed in Trusty but we should follow up with fresh installs of the Trusty daily builds. Nothing to follow up on with Precise since it's EOL for Lubuntu.

Wish I could pin-point what package update(s) changed the behavior but I'm not that smart ;^)

I still can't get this to work in my current installation of Lubuntu 14.04:I've set all available updates to be displayed immediately,added update-notifier to start up applications,and yet no notifications are ever visible.
So far,the only way to find updates has been to manually launch the update manager or do sudo apt-get upgrade,neither of which is very convenient.

I think we might be meant to manually launch the update manager as the first thing upon loading? I have been stumbling around trying to fix this with no luck. I think in one of the attempts, it worked after a suspend then disappeared again after a full shutdown and startup. Something overwriting the fix?

>I think we might be meant to manually launch the update manager as the first thing upon loading?

I really don't think so,in other distros I've used (including older Ubuntu releases) the update manager constantly pops up on its own right after booting,which doesn't happen in Lubuntu 14.

The only way to see it appear (short of launching it manually) is to not apply all updates and then click "remind me later"-but then,after applying the remaining updates,it's gone until you re-launch it manually.
That doesn't look to me at all as the expected/correct behaviour.

This is still affecting my Lubuntu 14.04.1 32-bit installation with default settings. Still no resolution or even importance assigned after > 2 years? This would seem to be a security issue for the non-technical-type user who would reasonably expect software updates (especially security updates) to "just work".

I find that the problem is fixed under Lubuntu 14.04.1 32-bit.