Unable to instal packages or fix problem with sudo

Asked by Matthew Rich

Unable to download and install packages to my system or system updates. The Synaptic Package manager is not properly installed. The Ubuntu docs refers me to sudo command lines that tell me that it requires require superuser access even though I have administrator access. How could I fix this?

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Solved
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Ubuntu gnome-panel Edit question
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Solved by:
Hanusz leszek
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Mathias Uebelacker (muebelacker) said :
#1

Hello Matthew,

what happens if you open synaptic? Please send more details about the fault.

br
Mathias

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Matthew Rich (matthew-rich69) said :
#2

I get this error message:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

If I do what it tells me it says I need superuser access to run that command

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Best Hanusz leszek (leszek-skynet) said :
#3

when a command requires superuser access, you should just add "sudo" at the beginning.
So the command you should run is:
sudo dpkg --configure -a

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Matthew Rich (matthew-rich69) said :
#4

Thanks Hanusz leszek, that solved my question.

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Eric Marceau (marceau504) said :
#5

I don't know if this was the same problem I had, but I would make a numbers of selections in Synaptic (Dapper) then click apply. At that point it would crash. The way in which it crashed also prevented me from using the command-line "apt" function directly.

If I had used the above command, would this have sorted everything out?

Thanks,

Eric, 51

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Talia (rachaelcook1989) said :
#6

i got this same message whilst trying to install updates or software, didn't realize it was that simple to fix it, the only thing i didn't get was why it took 6 attempts to put the password in but then i opened a new terminal and it worked straight away.

thanks all for the fix