update manager causes app crashes even when set to manual install

One thing I forgot to mention, it has always done this in previous releases of Ubuntu so it is not limited to 10.04

Have you tested your RAM using memtest in Grub?

Can you give the output of:

uname -a; lsb_release -a; echo; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade

Thanks

vern@xxxx-laptop:~$ uname -a; lsb_release -a; echo; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade
Linux vern-laptop 2.6.32-27-generic #49-Ubuntu SMP Wed Dec 1 23:52:12 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS
Release: 10.04
Codename: lucid

[sudo] password for xxxx:
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security Release.gpg
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid Release.gpg
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Translation-en_CA
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/restricted Translation-en_CA
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/universe Translation-en_CA
Ign http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/multiverse Translation-en_CA
Get:1 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates Release.gpg [198B]
Ign http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/main Translation-en_CA
Ign http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/restricted Translation-en_CA
Ign http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/universe Translation-en_CA
Ign http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/multiverse Translation-en_CA
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid Release
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security/main Translation-en_CA
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security/restricted Translation-en_CA
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security/universe Translation-en_CA
Ign http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security/multiverse Translation-en_CA
Get:2 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates Release [44.7kB]
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security Release
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security/main Packages
Hit http://archive.canonical.com intrepid Release.gpg
Ign http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ intrepid/partner Translation-en_CA
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security/restricted Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security/main Sources
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security/restricted Sources
Hit http://archive.canonical.com intrepid Release
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security/universe Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security/universe Sources
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security/multiverse Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com lucid-security/multiverse Sources
Hit http://archive.canonical.com intrepid/partner Packages
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/main Packages
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/restricted Packages
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/main Sources
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/restricted Sources
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/universe Packages
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/universe Sources
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/multiverse Packages
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/multiverse Sources
Get:3 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates/main Packages [427kB]
Get:4 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates/restricted Packages [3,240B]
Get:5 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates/main Sources [172kB]
Get:6 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates/restricted Sources [1,443B]
Get:7 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates/universe Packages [176kB]
Get:8 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates/universe Sources [62.7kB]
Get:9 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates/multiverse Packages [7,669B]
Get:10 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com lucid-updates/multiverse Sources [3,677B]
Fetched 899kB in 15s (56.2kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I'll have to run memtest later. I'm uploading now.

Hiding your username and hostname achieve nothing. You also failed to hide your username in the first line so I saw your username anyway:

vern@xxxx-laptop:~$ uname -a; lsb_release -a; echo; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade
[sudo] password for xxxx:

vern is the username, not that it helps anyone or aids security. Just thought I'd point that out.

I suggest you run:

sudo apt-get --reinstall install software-center

To reinstall the app. May help

It just crashed again and of course, there was an update trying to get through. Can't the update manager be removed altogether?

If you want. You can use apt-get exclusively if you wish.

and I just use the same command line you gave me:
uname -a; lsb_release -a; echo; sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade ??

What are you wanting to do?

Ultimately eliminate repeated hard booting. There was an update again requiring another hard boot on the weekend so I reinstalled update manager.
There was updates this morning too. How did I know? The app crashes, of course! No worries though, just one more hard boot and install the updates and all is good...
...until this evening I was interrupted by a couple more app crashes. Another hard boot was needed before I could get back on line to install the last bunch of new updates that were waiting for me. But every thing is okay now.

Still crashing when updates are coming in!

I get this now when trying to install an update:

Could not download all repository indexes

The repository may no longer be available or could not be contacted because of network problems. If available an older version of the failed index will be used. Otherwise the repository will be ignored. Check your network connection and ensure the repository address in the preferences is correct.

Failed to fetch http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid-backports/main/binary-i386/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Failed to fetch http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid-backports/restricted/binary-i386/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Failed to fetch http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid-backports/universe/binary-i386/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Failed to fetch http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid-backports/multiverse/binary-i386/Packages.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Failed to fetch http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid-backports/main/source/Sources.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Failed to fetch http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid-backports/restricted/source/Sources.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Failed to fetch http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid-backports/universe/source/Sources.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Failed to fetch http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/intrepid-backports/multiverse/source/Sources.gz 404 Not Found [IP: 91.189.88.46 80]
Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I may have something set wrong?

Intrepid is not supported in any way. I suggest you remove these repos.

By all means!
...where are they??

You have added some repos which are intrepid based, possibly when (if) the system was on Intrepid back in 2008/2009. You can run:

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

and delete them as they are of no use to you.

Does this help any?

It got rid of that error.

...but when I try to upgrade to 10.10 I get this:

Could not calculate the upgrade

An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade:
E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

 This can be caused by:
 * Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu
 * Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu
 * Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu

If none of this applies, then please report this bug against the 'update-manager' package and include the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade/ in the bug report.

The files are not on this computer so I'm not reporting a bug.

When your system crashes can you bring up a terminal screen by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F1

I'll try it next crash.
Check the original bug report. I just added two more syslogs to it.

There were more updates coming in.

Ok, got the syslogs. And yes try that key combo next time it freezes up (Ctrl+Alt+F1). Also, do you see this happens when using a specific program? In your case, firefox?

No rhyme or reason what program but one thing is for certain and that is when I get an update trying to get in.
I had 2 more crashes today one this morning and one 30 min. ago.
Updates both times of course.
  This morning I tried (Ctr+Alt+F1) it got me int terminal but my keyboard went all wonky, it seemed the caps lock was stuck on but it wasn't so I pulled the power cord, battery and replaced both, re-booted. It did a disk check and came up [the disk drive for /temp is not ready yet or is not present] I've seen that before so I selected skip, let it finish, re-booted and downloaded the updates and installed them.
  This last time, I logged on, the desktop background came up but no tool bars. Neither the mouse or keyboard would respond so I pulled the power cord, battery and replaced both, re-booted. It did a disk check but found nothing so I logged on when it finished and I downloaded another eight updates. I'm gonna install those now.

Attach the file from /var/log/messages

Lets have a look at that one.

The problem with the error message when attempting to upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10 can be a duplicate of bug 721306 and bug 658458 (and a dozen similar ones)

If the package xserver-xorg-video-nouveau is installed, in several cases the 10.04 to 10.10 upgrade fails with the error message

"Could not determine the upgrade
An unresolvable problem occurred while calculating the upgrade:
E:Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
This can be caused by:
* Upgrading to a pre-release version of Ubuntu
* Running the current pre-release version of Ubuntu
* Unofficial software packages not provided by Ubuntu"

Several persons have reported that after removal of that package the upgrade was successful.

Try this workaround: Open a terminal and enter the command:

sudo apt-get remove xserver-xorg-video-nouveau

and try the upgrade again.

By the way: When your system does not repond to anything any more, maybe you can just press the power button and keep it pressed for five seconds. For a lot of systems this does a hard power-off without the need to pull the cable and remove the battery - Of course this will not help solving the cause of the crashes!

or you can add the bootoption

nouveau.blacklist=1

Which will stop the driver being loaded. You can then install, do the same to the installed OS on first boot then install the proprietary driver and it should be ok

Beerhunter, Do you remember the date of the last crash?

Any files in /var/crash?

I am interested in what program is causing the crash. If you do a Ctr+Alt+F1 during the freeze up, can you execute a command like "top" and see what program is eating all the memory?

m-hampl:
I am not going to upgrade this notebook to 10.10 because of the Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG issue which this unit has.
I was however, trying to do a clean install of 10.10 on my AMD Athlon 1.6Ghz 160GB SATA HDD desktop with no success. It freezes right after you enter all your info. If you could point me in the right direction there, that'd be great! I could back everything up on it then wipe this notebook and do a clean install of 10.04 on it or wait until 11.04 comes out.
Either way, I'll need help installing it. Since Intrepid, the only thing I've been able to install is Windows7 and I don't want to go there!

redsingularity:
I have been having so many crashes since the upgrade from intrepid ibex that it's pretty much impossible to remember when the last crash was. " Did it crash again this morning? ...or was that last night ??? "
anyway, a search for /var/crash came up nothing. I'll try that command next crash. Usually, theres nothing more than my browser being used sometimes it was Transmission but a lot of the time, it can be idle and you just move a mouse or touch a key.

Type the following into a terminal and see if it causes a freeze:

sh /etc/cron.daily/apt

Okay, it crashed and I did Ctr+Alt+F1 >top and after log on, I saw a 10.10 upgrade message. Most of the data was zeros for memory except transmission that I was using at the time... it was idle but showed 0.6-0.7% but I also saw x-org with the same numbers

Nothing happened with that command.

Just crashed again right after I logged out! I was checking for updates when it happened ...and of course, there was another one: Linux firmware kernel drivers. I'm installing now.

This last time, I saw firefox bin @ 2.4% and Ubuntu one @ 0.4 or 0.6% ..it was on the other one too. I installed the update.

"...I installed the update...." Which one? Please be more exact and elaborate in your answers!

Look, I would have posted a screen shot of it but there's no provisions for attachments in this thread. Like I said 2 posts back " Linux firmware kernel drivers. " that's all I know. Anyone else running 10.04 would have got the same update. No?

Feel free to help but don't give me a hard time... I have enough trouble already!

Use imageshack / photobucket and host the image there. You can then paste the hyperlink to the image here