Software Manager Startup Problem with Linux Mint 20.2

[19henry21]

Having a problem with the Linux Mint Software Manager I would appreciate assistance on the following matter:

1) My Linux Mint 20.2 is installed on an external USB disk and worked fine for quite a while without problems. The installation of new apps with the Mint Software Manager was possible. The same is true for the GNOME Software manager which I used for apps I could not find via the Mint Software Manager.
2) Without having changed anything, the Linux Mint Software Manager does not start any more. A double-click produces a 30 second "search" procedure (in layman's terms) but the Software Manager does not open.
3) Trying to open the GNOME Software manager still works. The installation of new software is also possible.

Since I only install software via the GNOME Software Manager which I cannot find via the Mint Software Manager, I am still very interested to continue using the Mint Software Manager. BTW the Mint Update Manager is still operational.

Do you have any idea how to fix the problem?

[SMG]

Do you have any idea how to fix the problem?

Is your system updated to the latest updates? There was a problem some people were having with Software Manager that was fixed by updating to mintinstall 8.0.8.

You can check in Update Manager > View > History of Updates to see if you received that updated version.

[mikeflan]

Please type mintinstall in a terminal. Does Software Manager start? What is the response in the terminal? Mine is:

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$ mintinstall
MintInstall: Detected system architecture: 'x86_64'
Installer: User pkgcache is most recent, using it.
MintInstall: Deleting old screenshots

** (mintinstall.py:8207): WARNING **: 21:06:29.101: Found icon of unknown type, skipping it: unknown

** (mintinstall.py:8207): WARNING **: 21:06:29.101: Found icon of unknown type, skipping it: unknown
MintInstall: Downloaded new reviews

and Software Manager starts.

[19henry21]

Thanks for your hints.

The Update Manager history does not show any Mint 8.0.8 update.

Applying Mintistall in the command line unfortunately did not succeed because I repeatedly got the error message that timeout was reached.

user@user-ThinkPad-T430:~$ mintinstall
MintInstall: Detected system architecture: 'x86_64'
Failed to register: Timeout was reached
user@user-ThinkPad-T430:~$ mintinstall
MintInstall: Detected system architecture: 'x86_64'
Failed to register: Timeout was reached
user@user-ThinkPad-T430:~$

This corresponds to my first impression that the Software Manager when double-clicked looks for something .... So what do you think I can do?

[19henry21]

When applying the command "mintupdate" I received the following messages:

/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/mintUpdate.py DeprecationWarning: Gdk.threads_init is deprecated
Gdk.threads_init()
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/mintUpdate.py DeprecationWarning: Gtk.ImageMenuItem.set_image is deprecated
menuItem3.set_image(image)
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/mintUpdate.py:722: DeprecationWarning: Gdk.threads_enter is deprecated
Gdk.threads_enter()
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/mintUpdate.py:729: DeprecationWarning: Gdk.threads_leave is deprecated
Gdk.threads_leave()

[mikeflan]

Courtesy of Pjotr in this topic:
viewtopic.php?p=1550344#p1550344

Launch a terminal. What does this command give as output:

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sudo apt-get update

Followed by:

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sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

[SMG]

Or you could try removing and reinstalling Software Manager. Do the following one line at a time.

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apt reinstall mintinstall
mintinstall 

Then reboot.

[19henry21]

Thanks for your advice. I followed the recommended procedure, still ended up with the timeout error message, but in between there seems to be a hint regarding a KDE usr issue:

user@user-ThinkPad-T430:~$ apt reinstall mintinstall
[sudo] password for user:
The following packages will be REINSTALLED:
mintinstall
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 3.759 kB of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.
Get: 1 http://ftp.fau.de/mint/packages uma/main amd64 mintinstall all 8.0.8 [3.759 kB]
Fetched 3.759 kB in 2s (1.648 kB/s)
(Reading database ... 459418 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mintinstall_8.0.8_all.deb ...
Unpacking mintinstall (8.0. over (8.0. ...
Setting up mintinstall (8.0. ...
Error in file "/usr/share/applications/org.kde.kdeconnect_open.desktop": "*/*" is an invalid MIME type ("*" is an unregistered media type)
Could not parse file "/usr/share/applications/screensavers/glitchpeg.desktop": Key file contains line ?several times a second. After a while, finds a new image to corrupt. Written by Jamie Zawinski; 2018.? which is not a key-value pair, group, or comment
Listing '/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintinstall'...
Processing triggers for mime-support (3.64ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme (0.17-2) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:amd64 (2.64.6-1~ubuntu20.04.4) ...
Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:i386 (2.64.6-1~ubuntu20.04.4) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.24+linuxmint1) ...

user@user-ThinkPad-T430:~$ mintinstall
MintInstall: Detected system architecture: 'x86_64'
Failed to register: Timeout was reached
user@user-ThinkPad-T430

[SMG]

Thanks for your advice. I followed the recommended procedure, still ended up with the timeout error message, but in between there seems to be a hint regarding a KDE usr issue:

I've helped others on threads where removing KDE connect helped clear problems. Those problems showed in the ~/.xsession-errors file which is a hidden file in your home directory. You might want to check there to see if any messages might help.