Ubuntu
synaptic package

Synaptic displays "An error occurred"

Bug #880003 reported by John Law
34
This bug affects 12 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
synaptic (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

When I attempted to launch synaptic for the first time in this installation I got an error message.
-------------
An error occurred
The following details are provided.
E: The value 'natty' is invalid for APT::Default-Release as such a release is not available in the sources
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.
-------------
After a Natty Xubuntu install a few weeks ago and virtually no modifications at all, I allowed release update. Then,
since I wanted a fairly generic xfce4 desk I sought to disable the window border animation during move and I thought compiz-config may be able to change that.

I did apt-get install compiz-config and it seemed to install ok but I could not find the menu item to run it.

That is when I decided to install synaptic and I got the error above at the first run.
Note that synaptic was not installed before. and there were no concurrently running package management applications.

After closing synaptic I was able to run ubuntu software center, but I do regard that as a very much less functional application than synaptic.

I am not going to struggle with this installation because I already have a running Natty system on another partition.
I will just do a clean install of Xubuntu Oneiric if I can find a website showing how to disable the window animations.

PS: I had hoped with xfce to avoid all that silly stuff that is wobbly windows and Unity etc.

$> apt-cache policy synaptic
synaptic:
  Installed: 0.75.2ubuntu8
  Candidate: 0.75.2ubuntu8
  Version table:
 *** 0.75.2ubuntu8 0
        500 http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/ubuntu/ubuntu/ oneiric/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 11.10
Release: 11.10

Xfce4 desktop.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: synaptic 0.75.2ubuntu8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic-pae 3.0.4
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Oct 23 02:49:07 2011
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: synaptic
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-22 (0 days ago)

Revision history for this message
John Law (anoctoil) wrote :
Revision history for this message
John Law (anoctoil) wrote :

PS. This machine is i7 desktop HD Benq screen. All running smoothly on the other partition.
The report is for your information, not a request for help.
Thank you all for Ubuntu, (although I am not fond of Unity)

Revision history for this message
John Law (anoctoil) wrote :

[fixed]
After reading question #174349 synaptic package I was able to fix the above.
In /root/.synaptic/synaptic.conf I found a reference to natty. Changed it to oneiric.
Still threw an error but slightly different.
I did
sudo apt-get remove synaptic
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get install synaptic

That fixed the problem entirely.

Revision history for this message
Robert Roth (evfool) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug #831711, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.
---
Ubuntu Bug Squad volunteer triager
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

Revision history for this message
Robert Roth (evfool) wrote :

Please disregard my last comment, I have commented on the wrong bug.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in synaptic (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Robert Roth (evfool) wrote :

This bug usually seems to happen after upgrades, as Synaptic configuration has a Default-release property, which is not updated with the release, thus causing this problem.
---
Ubuntu Bug Squad volunteer triager
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

Revision history for this message
sanktnelson (launchpad-maibaums) wrote :

just wanted to add that I still have the problem after removing, purging and reinstalling synaptic. I have also deleted .synaptic directories in both my root and user account

Revision history for this message
Flavio Martins Prado (flavio-mprado) wrote :

The problem is probably caused by a configuration of synaptic saved on the ROOT directory. After purging synaptic, the configuration files should be removed, but they aren't... I coud find a .synaptic in root and in my home directory.

This should be considered another bug, or this is an acceptable behavior? I think purging a package should delete ALL config files...

By the way, i'm getting this error on debian wheezy, but is consistent with i read here, so here i am :)

manually editing the config for the defult-release solved this for me.

Revision history for this message
Daniel Hartwig (wigs) wrote : Re: [Bug 880003] Re: Synaptic displays "An error occurred"

On 27 June 2013 12:03, Flavio Martins Prado <email address hidden> wrote:
> The problem is probably caused by a configuration of synaptic saved on
> the ROOT directory. After purging synaptic, the configuration files
> should be removed, but they aren't... I coud find a .synaptic in root
> and in my home directory.
>
> This should be considered another bug, or this is an acceptable
> behavior? I think purging a package should delete ALL config files...

No. Purging a package removes log and system configuration files, but
must never touch files in a users home directory (such as ‘/root’).

Revision history for this message
dino99 (9d9) wrote :

That version is too old and no more maintained

Changed in synaptic (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Invalid
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