Why does Software Center fail to open with a "could not get usefulness..." error?

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Software center not opening

When opening software center, the operation is stuck after opening the window and upper bar. The error message when launching from terminal is:

2012-06-19 12:53:33,684 - softwarecenter.backend.reviews - WARNING - Could not get usefulness from server, no username in config file

I got it by myself.. this fixed the problem for me.. in terminal i typed :: rm -r ~/.cache/software-center — ofer, Jun 19 '12 at 11:21

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 12 '12 at 00:12

The OP solved this by opening the terminal with Ctrl+Alt+T and typing:

rm -r ~/.cache/software-center

When doing this, it's very important to not accidentally have a space after ~ or the first /. If you do, it will remove all the files in your home directory, which generally includes all your documents!
An alternative command to run, which doesn't turn into such a bad thing when typed slightly wrong, is this:
```
cd ~/.cache; rm -r software-center
```

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