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Since yesterday when I run the software updater, it freezes and the Details tab shows 'Preconfiguring packages'. This is the second day, since it first occurred. I have had to power off the system, which required my authorisation password. It shows that the packages have already been downloaded. From memory I thick they consist of Firefox and some my sql runtime libraries. I have stopped the my sqld service but to no avail. Whilst my system is frozen, I see the following in top:

    PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU  %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND  
   4306 root      25   5  130656 119032   9080 S  58.3   2.0   7:33.49 dpkg-pr+ 
   4312 nick      20   0   86692  70020  29060 S  22.8   1.2   3:03.99 debconf+ 
   4321 root      25   5    9904   3856   3456 S  11.9   0.1   1:33.56 mysql-a+ 
   4309 nick      20   0   11136   5764   5240 R  11.6   0.1   1:33.03 pk-debc+ 
   4397 nick      20   0 3612716 358172 158756 S   1.0   6.0   1:10.29 firefox

Any assistance in returning my machine to normal, will be gratefully received

Update, following request in comment:

Hit:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:2 http://repo.mysql.com/apt/ubuntu focal InRelease                     
Get:3 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease [111 kB] 
Get:4 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease [98.3 kB]  
Get:5 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease [107 kB]
Fetched 317 kB in 1s (332 kB/s
NickT
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1 Answers1

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Much as I dislike people answering their own questions,as it is often a vehicle for showing off, I'll make an exception here, as I was genuinely stuck.

After a lot of googling for 'Ubuntu' + 'Preconfiguring packages' + 'stuck',

the answer by ostrokach to this question:

enter link description here 12.04 update is stuck on preconfiguring packages

Killing the leaf process which was listed as being apt-mysql-config (or something titled very similar) that was blocking the dpkg configure,fixed most of the problem for me. I had to do this a couple of times. I'm not sure if mysql is still OK but at least the other applications get upgraded.

As I did nothing unusual, I think other users of 20.04 and mysql/maria may well run into the same problem.

NickT
  • 2,203