LM 18.3 Update Manager always shows blue circle - SOLVED

[grungy_me]

Since I updated from LM 18.2 to 18.3 and using the default 4.10.0-38 kernel, the Update Manager in the panel always shows the blue circle. Hovering my mouse over it, it says that there are 7 updates available. Opening it up I see a list of level 3 and level 4 updates, but nothing is check marked. What's going on here? This behavior did not happen in 18.2 and makes it difficult for me to actually know when there are updates. In the last few days there have been some actual check marked updates that I've applied successfully, but it means I have to occasionally click on the update manager to know if there are any. The update policy I keep to the middle, recommended for most users, and this has not changed since this feature came into being.

How do I correct this?

Thanks in advance.

[Cosmo.]

The behavior has been changed in 18.3 - and actually only now it does display the correct status. If you have set to display level 3 / 4 updates it would really be illusion to say, that the system is up to date; quite obviously it is not. So the update manager is correct to show the blue shield (not a circle BTW). Read the help file of the update manager, which says, that you should apply those updates (especially if it are security updates). But you should do it with precaution and only one by one, so that in case of a problem you can say, which update gave the problem. A good method for precaution is using TimeShift, which allows you - after at least one current restore point exists - to revert to the old system status.

If you disagree and do really not want to apply those updates, it does really make no sense to show them at all. Disable those levels from displaying - and life in the illusion, that the system is up to date. This will give you the green check mark back.

[grungy_me]

Cosmo,

Thank you for your response. That's strange that this new change in how the Update Manager works was not documented in the release notes or announcement of 18.3. I swear I read through all of that and saw nothing about this change. I'd think that this would be a sufficiently important enough change to notify users of. Thank you for the recommendation of using TimeShift and doing the updates one at a time. I'll give that a try.

[grungy_me]

Ok, so I had to manually install Timeshift as the 18.3 upgrade did not do it. But I was otherwise able to make a system snapshot and update each level 3 and 4 update one at a time until they were all done. Re-booted and everything appears to still work correctly. Now I get the green check mark on the shield.

[Cosmo.]

That's strange that this new change in how the Update Manager works was not documented in the release notes or announcement of 18.3.

I agree. The Update Manager does now a more correct job, but changes like that have to get documented, otherwise confusion on the user's side is predictable. You are not the first who fell into this trap (some users believed, that the new behavior is a bug) and I complained this documentation leak already in the last month.

[grungy_me]

Awesome! Thank you Cosmo for your help and letting the LinuxMint developers be aware of the lack of documentation of this change.

[Mr_Reed]

This confuses newbies. In previous versions the updates are "automatically" checked so I accept them. With 18.3 it keeps telling me my computer is NOT up to date, but doesn't show any updates checked. How in the world am I supposed to know what all the language in the change logs means?

[gld59]

It confuses newbies who have used earlier versions of Linux Mint. As Cosmo. says above, this new behaviour is closer to correct. In previous versions of Linux Mint 18, the same updates would have been automatically selected in Update Manager, but if the only available updates were all not selected it would show the green tick. That was actually wrong, and the new behaviour fixes that (but there is still the incorrect "Your system is up to date" message at the bottom of the window).

You should apply all updates offered, but those which are most likely to cause problems for some people are not automatically selected, allowing you to be more careful and perhaps apply them one at a time.

[Cosmo.]

How in the world am I supposed to know what all the language in the change logs means?

This is indeed a good question. But the answer for it can never be, that the update manager lies to you and says (with the check mark), that your system is up to date although it isn't. Assume the case, that you got somehow affected by a not closed security hole, just because you did not apply the offered fix. Can you imagine, that you - or another user - might get pissed off, because you / (s)he trusted the update manager, who gave the imagination(!) of an up to date system? If you really do not want to get bothered with those updates, change the settings regarding their display. Of course in this case you are the responsible person, in case a vulnerability should hit you.

But there is an option, which you can use, which combines security by updating and protection against regressions: Use TimeShift. I wrote in the last time several posts about that, covering all kind of questions. If you have more question, open a new thread - for this thread questions about S would be off topic. With TS you can apply all updates; if the system should break afterwards, you can revert this (and in this case more investigation into the cause of the problem would be needed).