Your system is up to date. (Solved)

[viking777]

Although not a new Mint user, I am very definitely a new Mintupdate user because up till now I have used either Synaptic or apt-get. The recent improvements in Mintupdate have enticed me to switch to using that program, but I don't quite see how the tray icon is supposed to be working.

When I switched on this morning my Mintupdate tray icon indicated "your system is up to date". Since this is unusual for the LMDE rolling release I right clicked and pressed refresh, but got the same message. I launched the program with a left click and refreshed from there and four updates were available which I installed. I continued to use Mint all day long and the tray icon continued to show "your system is up to date" even after a right click and refresh. I launched the program again (left click) and another update was waiting for me (mintupdate 4.2.8 as it happens).

This has nothing to do with 'levels' as I have all of those enabled (and mintupdate is a level 1 update anyway but still wasn't shown), and I have auto refresh set to the default 15 minutes, but I don't seem to be getting any notification of updates.

Is it restricted to notifying you once per day perhaps, or is it normal to have to launch the main program to get any notification of available updates? I don't really mind if that is the case because that is how Synaptic works anyway, but I thought it was supposed to happen automatically with Mintupdate.

Of course I have only been using it since yesterday, so maybe I need to be a bit more patient with it and it might play nicely?

[mads]

mintUpdate is an app (and not a living being), and an app should behave (communicate with me) in a logically consistent manner.
Your system is up to date = There are no packages to be installed right now

Any other behavior makes it not reliable. If, using mintUpdate, I have to think, investigate, wonder and get confused in order to
understand what mintUpdate really means when it tells me Your system is up to date, then I would rather go to terminal or
Synaptic.

[richyrich]

Something to check a few times during your uptime, is to right-click the Update panel icon -> Information . . . any errors ? anomalies ?

ps: do you think checking for updates every 15 minutes is more beneficial ? compared to checking once every three or four hours ?
pss: imagine ; thousands of Mint users, all sending server/update requests, every 15 minutes of the day (and night) ?

[viking777]

Actually I think I can mark this one solved.

It is just taking an awful long time to get round to notifying me about the updates (45 minutes - 3 refresh cycles) before I got any notification today. It seems odd that it would not find the updates on the first two cycles (I don't believe that they werent' there), but anyway it is working, so that is all that matters, it just requires patience or manual intervention.

Or maybe not.

After updating with Mintupdate I checked with Synaptic and there is still an update present there that is not shown at all in Mintupdate (a gstreamer plugin from debian-multimedia). Maybe I have to wait another 45 minutes before this one shows up?

[mads]

In my opinion, Clem should know about these inconsistencies.
mintUpdate is an essential part of Mint, and unless it works
flawlessly it is useless. Why use it, when you have Synaptic.
Until all these are gone, I am not going to use mintUpdate.
So, I mean the thread is not solved, but the decision is yours.

[amina]

I can confirm this, mintUpdate often shows the system as up-to-date and then when I run it I realize there are updates to install.
I remember this has been already mentioned in other posts as well (I do not know where exactly but I have already read about it so I was not suprised), but no specific thread for this behaviour until now.
I do not really care because I open it once a day anyway, but it can really be misleading if you believe it.

[viking777]

Well it is several hours later now and my system is still showing "up to date" even after opening it and manually refreshing it. There are no updates visible. Synaptic still shows the gstreamer update as available so clearly something is not quite right here. Given this behaviour and the opinions expressed in the previous two posts I will not be marking this solved just yet because it isn't.

[clem]

OK, I subscribed to this topic so I'll be keeping an eye on your feedback.

When you login first, mintupdate is launched with your own permissions... i.e. in user mode. When in that mode it runs only in the system tray, and it does not have sufficient permissions to perform an "apt update". In other words, it does check every X minutes whether things are available, but it cannot refresh the APT cache. So if you use some other APT program in the meantime and thus refresh the APT cache yourself, mintupdate is then able to find new available updates.... if that makes sense...

When you click on mintupdate to see its main window, it basically kills itself and re-launches in root mode. That's why it asks for a password. So, once you've seen the mintupdate main window, from that moment on, it's running in root mode. Before it shows the window, and before it checks for updates it refreshes the APT cache.

You can check the log and you'll see in there whether the update manager is running in user or root mode.

In terms of reliability and rationale, it's not important that an available update appear "immediately". What's important though, is that mintupdate list all available updates in a consistent manner... so for instance, if there's a particular update listed by Synaptic that doesn't appear in MintUpdate that should be considered a bug and we should find the cause for it. If that's the case, please give me as much info as you can, logs, apt policy for the package, versions, etc..

[viking777]

OK my pc has been shut down for a while so there is not much in the mintupdate log this is all it has:

++ Launching mintUpdate in user mode
++ Testing initial connection
++ Connection to the Internet successful (tried to read http://www.google.com)
++ Starting refresh
++ Auto-refresh timer is going to sleep for 15 minutes, 0 hours and 0 days
++ System is up to date
++ Refresh finished
++ Launching mintUpdate in root mode...
++ Starting refresh
++ System is up to date
++ Refresh finished

apt-cache policy gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad
gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad:
Installed: 0.10.20-0.1
Candidate: 0.10.21-0.0
Version table:
0.10.21-0.0 0
500 http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ testing/main i386 Packages
*** 0.10.20-0.1 0
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

The package is still not showing in mintupdate even after launching it and refreshing it, but it is in synaptic and apt.

[clem]

Viking, what if you open mintUpdate (the main window) and click refresh there (not from the system tray, but from the button itself), does it show up then?

Also make sure in your preferences that you have the "dist-upgrade" option enabled and that you have all levels on visible.

[cecar]

In apt-get gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad is set as held back.

[viking777]

cecar is right, it is held back if you try it in apt-get. I have been trying to avoid installing it any other way than with Mintupdate so I can still troubleshoot the problem but I guess it doesn't need troubleshooting, this is what Synaptic says if you try to install it:

gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad:
Depends: libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 (>=0.10.32) but 0.10.30-1 is to be installed

So it is a dependency issue. Does that mean that Mintupdate is clever enough to detect dependency issues and not show the update if the dependency can't be met? That is pretty impressive if it is so - even better than Synaptic! I'm impressed and owe you an apology for a false alarm.

[clem]

I'm not sure how Synaptic works... mintUpdate queries APT for changes in relation to either an "apt upgrade" or an "apt dist-upgrade". It doesn't simply list all the packages which have new versions available, it displays these "changes".. so I guess it relies on python-apt, but if python-apt is smart enough to detect these dependencies issues, then so is mintUpdate.

[rdonnelly]

I find my notification always shows a green check mark. The icon will not update, unless I click the icon, and give my password. Then it keeps up with updates until I log out.

[mads]

Report mintUpdate 4.2.8

Installation & first run

1- $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mintupdate

2- Menu > Administration > Update Manager (Note: all settings are as default)
After typing my password to get sufficient permissions, the main Window appears and almost
simultaneously the "Downloading Package Information" window starts to check for new packages

3- Main Window shows: 25 recommended updates available (10MB)

4- After installing the updates, the main window closes. Update Managers tray icon shows a
green checkmark (Your system is up to date)

5- I have previously disabled mintUpdate in startup applications preferences:
Menu > Preferences > Startup Applications > enable mintUpdate

6- Reboot. Right after login, the Update Managers tray icon is not visible yet. But,
as soon as I get connected, the tray icon appears and shows a green checkmark.
(Note: I have a wireless interface with hidden ssid which sometimes doesn't
immediately get connected.)

Log file

Right clicking the tray icon > Information shows you "Log file" which is basically a repetition of these 6-7 lines.

Root mode:
++ Launching mintUpdate in root mode
++ Starting refresh
++ Auto-refresh timer is going to sleep for 15 minutes, 0 hours and 0 days
++ System is up to date
++ Refresh finished
++ MintUpdate is in tray mode, performing auto-refresh

User mode
++ Launching mintUpdate in user mode
++ Testing initial connection
++ Connection found - checking for updates
++ Starting refresh
++ Auto-refresh timer is going to sleep for 15 minutes, 0 hours and 0 days
++ System is up to date
++ Refresh finished

The log file is rather poor, and the only usable information it shows is if mintUpdate was launched in 'user mode'
or 'root mode'. '/var/log/mintUpdate.history', however, shows date, time, package names and version numbers.
(Note: Another way to see 'mintUpdate.history' is: Update Manager > View > History of updates)

Possible bug:

According to Clem "once you've seen the mintupdate main window, from that moment on, it's running
in root mode."

When I click the tray icon, give my password, and then close the main window,
if I go to Menu > Administration > Update Manager, then a window pops up saying:
Please enter your password. However, if I click "Refresh" before closing the main
window, starting Update Manager from Menu will not ask for password.

The impossible

According to Clem "When you login first, mintupdate is launched with your own permissions... i.e. in user mode.
When in that mode it runs only in the system tray, and it does not have sufficient permissions to
perform an "apt update". In other words, it does check every X minutes whether things are available,
but it cannot refresh the APT cache. So if you use some other APT program in the meantime and thus
refresh the APT cache yourself, mintupdate is then able to find new available updates...."

If I have not misunderstood this it means that sometimes tray icon shows your system is up to date,
but if you run 'apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade', you'll see that there are some packages to upgrade.
It looks like an impossible task to overcome this behavior.

Overall impression

It is good looking, smooth to run, correctly kept back "gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad" package
because it had unresolvable dependency, showed the same amount of packages that apt-get showed,
installed all of them, was automatically closed when the job was done, and then tray icon showed
that system is up to date.

I was also impressed when after the reboot, the tray icon didn't showed up before I was connected
to internet. When it showed up, it correctly showed that my system was up to date.

The only problem I can see so far is that I don't see any information regarding the package which
was kept back neither in 'Log file' nor in 'History of updates'. I don't know if this is related to all 5
levels not being enabled by default. Do I get this information if I have all 5 levels on visible, or do
I have to check somewhere else?

Conclusion

Before my experience with mintUpdate 4.2.8, I thought it must be extremely difficult to make
mintUpdate handle all complexity involved in upgrading a Debian testing based system, but I was
wrong. This is very promising. Thank you Clem. Excellent done!

[dawgdoc]

If I have not misunderstood this it means that sometimes tray icon shows your system is up to date,
but if you run 'apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade', you'll see that there are some packages to upgrade.
It looks like an impossible task to overcome this behavior.

I believe 'sudo apt-get update' will then allow mintUpdate to show if there are packages to upgrade. BUT, 'sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' will refresh the apt cache and then install the updates and thus mintUpdate would still correctly show your system as update and no packages to install.

[mads]

If I have not misunderstood this it means that sometimes tray icon shows your system is up to date,
but if you run 'apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade', you'll see that there are some packages to upgrade.
It looks like an impossible task to overcome this behavior.

I believe 'sudo apt-get update' will then allow mintUpdate to show if there are packages to upgrade. BUT, 'sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade' will refresh the apt cache and then install the updates and thus mintUpdate would still correctly show your system as update and no packages to install.

What I meant is the following situation, but I don't know how to formulate it:
A. mintUpdate's tray icon shows green check mark "Your system is up to date"
B. You open a terminal and run "sudo apt-get update" followed by "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade"
C. If there is something to install/upgrade you will see a message like this:

Code: Select all

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad
The following packages will be upgraded:
  acpid apt apt-utils curl libcurl3 libcurl3-gnutls libgsf-1-114 libgsf-1-common libmusicbrainz4c2a libnss3-1d libpolkit-gtk-1-0 libthai-data libthai0 libtiff4 libusbmuxd1 libx11-6 libx11-data libx11-dev
  libx11-xcb1 libxvidcore4 live-config live-config-sysvinit mintupdate policykit-1-gnome tzdata usbmuxd
26 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 10.9 MB of archives.
After this operation, 57.3 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

D. You type n (or Y), but now you know that mintUpdate's tray icon was "falsely" showing "Your system is up to date"

[mads]

What am I missing?

mintUpdate Preferences: Level 1,2,3 on Safe and Visible, level 4,5 on Visible

Right after login Log file shows:
Launching mintUpdate in user mode
Note: Doesn't matter how long I am logged in, the tray icon "falsely" shows "your system is up to date".

After clicking the tray icon and typing my password, Log file shows:
Launching mintUpdate in root mode
Found 13 recommended software updates

So, in order to see updates and install them, I have to do these actions:
1- Click the tray icon
2- Typing my password to grant root permissions
3- Click "Install updates"

Now the updates are installed, and packages with unresolvable dependencies are correctly kept back. I can
easily see what packages are installed in "History of updates", but how can I see which packages were kept
back? I don't see this information in "Information" or "History of updates".

I don't know, may be I have missed something or my settings in preferences are wrong. But I don't see the
point to install updates with mintUpdate when I don't get complete information and there are as many steps
involved as when I run apt-get dist-upgrade.

[clem]

Well, it all comes down to one thing and one thing only: You need to refresh your APT cache to see if there are "new" updates. For this, you need to elevate yourself to root.

When you click on mintupdate, it launches itself in root mode, and that's why it asks for a password. When you type "apt update" (which is the same as "sudo apt-get update"), you're asked for a password too.. as you're elevating yourself as root to refresh the cache. Either way, you're refreshing your cache when you do that.

What's important to realise here, is that mintUpdate isn't designed to "alert" you in "real time". It's not a server admin tool to keep your box up to date "the minute" something is released in the repositories. Its primary function is to make it easy for people to upgrade and to prevent novice users from upgrading sensitive parts of their system (via the level system).

Note however, that if you wanted mintUpdate to find updates and alert you in real time, all you'd have to do is to create a cron job that regularly calls "apt update". This would refresh the cache for you in the background and mintUpdate would then be able to find new updates, whether it's in root mode or user mode.

You could make the following call in /etc/cron.hourly/

Code: Select all

apt-get update 2> /dev/null

[mads]

Dear clem, thank you very much for the answer, explanation and the tip about cron.

The only reason that I see mintUpdate inferior to updating in Terminal is this:

mads@stua2-linux ~ $ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
...
The following packages have been kept back:
gstreamer0.10-plugins-really-bad
...

I don't see this information before or during the update, and I can't find it in
"Information" or "History of updates" after the update.