Haven’t been updating Ubuntu MATE for 30 days. Today I finally did it. All went well with the Software Updater right until it tried to download and install the extension pack. The download went well since I can see the file on /usr/share. But then it gets stuck and does nothing else.
I rebooted the machine and ran Software Updater again. Before it goes online to check for new updates, it tries to finish the last update and again VirtualBox extension pack holds everything else hostage after it.
How can I get past the extension pack (which I can install manually later) so Software Updater gets the job done?
No. Not anymore. That screen is long gone. It made all downloads and was on the process of installing everything. Software Updater can no longer work, since It now always tries to first install that extension pack for VirtualBox (aka finish the previous update session), before looking again for new updates.
Note: I’m almost sure this has to do with the fact that the extension pack uses a license that needs to be accepted. It’s what happens when we install it from within VirtualBox interface. But there’s no request on the Software Updater script for accepting the license, which is what probably is halting the whole thing. For now I just need to skip this nonsense and get Software Updater working again.
Edit: Good idea on the terminal. Let me try that. Need to reboot though. Because Software Updater also refuses to cancel and quit.
I marked both virtualbox and virtualbox-ext-pack as hold. But that won’t take effect on the current unfinished upgrade.
Meanwhile followed James tip. Same problem. It’s almost certainly to do with the license agreement. here’s my output at the terminal. I’m cutting off the whole license agreement text to not bore you. But after that, there’s no prompt. Just a blinking cursor. The update script isn’t giving me an option to accept the agreement. And that halts the whole thing.
[2998] [~] $ sudo dpkg --configure -a
[2999] [~] $ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Setting up virtualbox-ext-pack (5.0.36-0ubuntu1.16.04.2) ...
virtualbox-ext-pack: downloading: http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.0.36/Oracle_VM_VirtualBox_Extension_Pack-5.0.36.vbox-extpack
The file will be downloaded into /usr/share/virtualbox-ext-pack
VirtualBox Personal Use and Evaluation License (PUEL)
License version 9, 17 November 2016
ORACLE AMERICA, INC. ("ORACLE") IS WILLING TO LICENSE THE PRODUCT DEFINED
IN SECTION 1 BELOW ONLY ON THE CONDITION THAT YOU ACCEPT ALL OF THE TERMS
CONTAINED IN THIS VIRTUALBOX PERSONAL USE AND EVALUATION LICENSE AGREEMENT
("AGREEMENT").
IF YOU ARE AGREEING TO THIS LICENSE ON BEHALF OF AN ENTITY (RATHER THAN
AS AN INDIVIDUAL HUMAN BEING), YOU REPRESENT THAT YOU HAVE THE APPROPRIATE
[...]
Might not be any help but you could try using VBoxManage - the command line interface for VirtualBox.
sudo VBoxManage extpack install [the extension]
I suppose this would be for installing an extension pack rather than upgrading one, however it could be worth a shot. Might be worth going to the Virtual Box forums, they might be able to help.
Maybe try completely removing the extension that is causing the updater to hang using VBoxManage, running the software updater again and then installing the extension again after? There’s also a VBoxManage extpack cleanup command that might somehow ‘clean’ things up, who knows.
James, deleting the pack won’t do a thing since the Software Updater is trying to download it anyway. But before it proceeds with the download proper, it shows me its license agreement. But I cannot agree due to lack of a prompt. So the whole process is halted, waiting for a confirmation I cannot give.
At this stage, the Software Updater is only trying to download the extension pack. And before you ask, no, downloading it manually from Oracle and placing it under the correct folder inside /usr/share/ won’t do. I tried it. The Software Updater ignores it because at this stage it is only following the scripted routine.
I hope this clarifies it better for you.
I need a way to tamper with the Software Updater current scripted routine so I can remove that entry that is making it impossible for me to do any further updates or even make use of apt altogether to install or uninstall stuff.
Didn’t work at first and the terminal got caught again in the extension pack, which I cannot even ctrl+c. Need to kill the terminal.
But after reboot I was finally able to access Synaptic! This allowed me to purge the the extension pack package and updater started behaving again. All is well now. Thanks.
