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Ubuntu 18.04.1, Gnome Shell 3.28.1, Ubuntu Software 3.28.1, on an x86_64 architecture computer.

Recently I began having this problem:

Ubuntu Software presents desktop notifications saying that various software packages have updates available. I start Ubuntu Software, go to the "Updates" tab, and see all the packages to update with "Update" buttons next to them. For every single one, when I click on the "Update" button, I get an error message of this format:

Unable to update xxxxx: Could not find update for 'xxx/xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/x86_64/stable'

where "xxx" represents some text.

(I attached a screenshot of a typical message to this posting for a software package called "Cozy".)

After I dismiss this message, the application disappears from the list of packages to update. Eventually, I go through them all, and then Ubuntu Software says "Software is up to date".

I have no idea whether or not the packages actually updated correctly.

What does this message mean, and what should I be doing to fix whatever is wrong?

enter image description here

dln949
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  • In the terminal, try sudo apt update, then retry Software Center. Report back to @heynnema – heynnema Feb 12 '19 at 15:29
  • apt update did not help any, still same problem. I discovered that in a terminal if I run flatpak update , that updated the package in question. Perhaps the problem is only connected with flatpak packages on Ubuntu Software???? On a different site a person suggested this may be my problem, but I don't know how to verify that: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/issues/235 . It basically says that Flatpak runtime extensions are not installed when using GNOME software - whatever the heck "runtimes" are. Not sure what it all means, nor what I should do. – dln949 Feb 13 '19 at 04:06
  • Oops. I forgot part of the commands... Do sudo apt update and then sudo apt upgrade. Then retry Software Center. Report back to @heynnema – heynnema Feb 13 '19 at 05:28
  • @heynnema : The results of sudo apt upgrade: 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. So, I take that to mean that the command accomplished nothing - Am I correct? – dln949 Feb 13 '19 at 13:47
  • Correct. But did it allow Software Center/Updates to work properly now, without the error message? – heynnema Feb 13 '19 at 14:16
  • Well.... How would I know that? The problem only revealed itself whenever Ubuntu Software had updates to applications to propose to me. Right now it doesn't have any. So, as far as I know, all I can do now is wait until it has some updates for me to try to process, and then I will see if it worked. Unless..... You know of some other way????? – dln949 Feb 14 '19 at 04:27
  • It'll only take a couple of days for new updates to show up. Try again then, and let me know how it goes, and I can write up a formal answer that you can accept, ok? Report back to @heynnema – heynnema Feb 14 '19 at 13:49
  • heynnema: Today some updates came via Ubuntu Software. Sadly, I still have the original problem, no improvement. – dln949 Feb 20 '19 at 17:25
  • I just checked mine, after updates, and it showed that I was up to date, so I clicked the reload icon, and there were no errors. When you did the commands, you used sudo apt... not sudo apt-get, correct? – heynnema Feb 20 '19 at 17:36
  • correct, I did sudo apt, NOT apt-get – dln949 Feb 20 '19 at 21:09
  • Are you getting error messages again when you try to reload the Updates tab? What happens if you open Synaptic and do a reload there? – heynnema Feb 20 '19 at 21:11
  • Thanks, but I'm not understanding your latest questions.

    The error messages never appeared from simply "loading" or "reloading" the "Updates" tab. Rather, they appeared when I would click on each packages "Update" button. And Yes, I am still getting the same error messages when I click on the package's "Update" button.

    Regarding Synaptic: I have since noticed that I have this problem only with Flatpak packages (as I mentioned earlier), so I don't think Synaptic will help in this case - will it? But anyway - reloading in Synaptic yielded no error messages.

     – dln949 Feb 21 '19 at 04:04
  • Oh, I misunderstood. You're getting the errors only when clicking the individual package update buttons. The image you shared didn't articulate that. The Synaptic test was to see that you could reload there without error messages. If there had been errors, that could have been a clue for how to fix your problem. I'll have to wait for more updates to appear, and I'll retry updating using the USC to see if I get the same problem as you. – heynnema Feb 21 '19 at 04:08

1 Answers1

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I encountered a similar problem with Audacity, which I had installed via flatpak. In my case, I did not get an error message more specific than "Unable to update Audacity," and I never got the misleading "Software is up to date" message. It would always fail the same way.

Here's how I resolved it:

  • run flatpak list
  • identify the name of the affected app from that list; for Audacity, which is listed as org.audacityteam.Audacity/x86_64/stable, the name is org.audacityteam.Audacity
  • run flatpak update NAME for each app
universalhandle
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