The New 16.04 Gnome software center not working

[Robgoss]

Hello everyone I have Ubuntu 16.04 Mate, I installed it and have been running it for a few weeks now but now the software center will not display any of the apps or anything.

It loads super fast when I click on the white icon but that’s about it, I can’t download anything or install.

Any have any suggestions

[pfeiffep]

By software center do you mean Software Boutique? or the Gnome Software Center [software and updates]?
The boutique worked just fine for me, however the Gnome Software Center produced an unpopulated screen.
I then closed it and executed these commands:

sudo apt update && sudo apt ugrade

and launched it again with full population. This may be a bug

[Robgoss]

Hello Pfeiffep, You know now that you mention it, it’s not the new Software Boutique but yet the old Ubuntu Software center. I just checked and the Software Boutique seems to work just fine.

Is it best to just remove the old one? It seems to get a bit confusing to have more them one besides the old one is not working as it should.

Thanks for your response.

[wolfman]

Hi Rob,

have you checked out Welcome and have you subscribed to its updates?:

[Robgoss]

Hi Wolf, I don’t remember doing so I have to check to see were the Subscribe button is I did not see any button

[wolfman]

Hi Rob,

if you have already done it, it won’t show again as far as I am aware?. It is on the start page as soon as you open Welcome.

[Robgoss]

Sweet thanks so much for pointing it out Wolfman

[pfeiffep]

Add on to the possible bug in software center [3.20.1] ... after the above I decided to explore the center and noticed a green box with the #1 indicating there were updates to be installed.

I found this highly suspect since I minutes prior did a manual update and upgrade. I clicked the install button

the screen refreshed and then displayed the same green #1 after Updates.

I'm uncertain about this and whether I should attempt to report a bug or not. Hopefully one of our more learned members will provide some guidance. I'll post snip of syslog in an update

[Robgoss]

Is this the old software center for Ubuntu?

[pfeiffep]

Because I don’t have the historical knowledge required to answer definitively I posted to version {software center [3.20.1]}

[pfeiffep]

@wolfman + @Robgoss When I searched on
/usr/lib/gs-plugins-9/libgs_plugin_xdg_app_reviews.so
I found this bug already reported on launchpad

[Robgoss]

Oh ok thanks for letting us know

[pfeiffep]

Please mark solved somewhere in this thread so others may benefit by not troubleshooting

[lah7]

Just to add, installing third party DEB files were also not working:

Can't Install Third-Party Apps on Ubuntu 16.04? You're Not Alone

[pfeiffep]

I think the problems with Gnome Software is being worked on and is still not functioning correctly. Yeasterday I checked it out, especially the Installed portion and all seemd to be ok. Now, after reading @lah7 post I checked again and it never finished just produce a blank screen… I had updated and upgraded my computer minutes prior
syslog entries follow

Apr 28 10:08:45 Dell-1749 org.gnome.Software[2627]: (gnome-software:7894): GsPlugin-WARNING **: Failed to get changelog for ubuntu-mate-desktop version 1.154 from changelogs.ubuntu.com: Cannot connect to destination
Apr 28 10:08:45 Dell-1749 org.freedesktop.Notifications[2627]: ** (mate-notification-daemon:14169): WARNING **: Couldn't connect to accessibility bus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-0Fa9o5rU99: Connection refused
Apr 28 10:08:48 Dell-1749 dbus[782]: [system] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.fwupd' (using servicehelper)
Apr 28 10:08:49 Dell-1749 org.freedesktop.fwupd[782]: (fwupd:14187): Fu-WARNING **: Failed to coldplug: UEFI firmware updating not supported
Apr 28 10:08:49 Dell-1749 dbus[782]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.fwupd'

I added these to the existing bug

[wolfman]

I can only suggest that people change their software sources download location and switch to a different server mirror then update again!.

For anyone that doesn’t know how to do that, see the update guide:

Ubuntu Mate Update Guide

These are my own setting preferences, use at your own risk!. AN IMPORTANT NOTE FOR LINUX BEGINNERS. WHEN YOU ARE IN RECOVERY MODE, THE KEYBOARD DEFAULTS TO US ENGLISH, IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER LANGUAGE KEYBOARD OTHER THAN US ENGLISH, WHEN YOU TYPE "Y" (FOR "YES"), IT MIGHT SHOW UP AS A DIFFERENT LETTER, ON MY KEYBOARD I MUST PRESS THE "Z" KEY WHICH EQUATES TO "Y" AS I HAVE A GERMAN KEYBOARD, JUST PRESS "BACKSPACE" AND HIT A DIFFERENT KEY UNTIL YOU SEE THE "Y" SHOW UP!. Click on "Subscri…

[pfeiffep]

IMHO since there’s an active bug it’s probably best not to fiddle with this and accept results.
Command line, and Software Boutique [version 16.04.10-xenial1.2] all seem to work for me without changing server source.

Synaptic returns these 2 errors, however Synaptic worked when I re-installed MATE Welcome
W: http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/dists/stable/Release.gpg: Signature by key 4CCA1EAF950CEE4AB83976DCA040830F7FAC5991 uses weak digest algorithm (SHA1)
W: There is no public key available for the following key IDs:
1397BC53640DB551

[pfeiffep]

There’s more than one issue with Software Center … read about here

[wolfman]

Hi Peter,

despite having marked this as solved, the problem came back to haunt me this morning!.

Is the software updater tool broken?

Hi @Wimpy, the software updater (Ubuntu Mate 16.04- 64 Bit) fails saying I should check my internet connection (working fine btw), I am having to update through Synaptic which for many noobs; it would be a daunting task, is this a bug?: [image] I'm not sure if this is the right section on the forum, please move it if not!.

[pfeiffep]

Guten tag @wolfman - Interesting I just launched the tool to superficially test and it worked perfectly for me today.

I wonder if the fact that I did a manual update / upgrade earlier had any affect?