Bug#492863: update-notifier: the tray icon keeps finding updates even when the system is up to date

[Sylvain Chevillard]

Package: update-notifier
Version: 0.70.7.debian-3
Severity: normal

Update-notifier used to work perfectly. Since a moment the tray icon do not disappear any more and keeps displaying "There are 2 updates available".

However, my system is up-to-date (the 2 remaining updates are after a dist-upgrade. In contrast, when performing a dist-upgrade, if aptitude tells that there are n packages to install, the tray icon tells that there are n+2 updates).
Moreover when I click on the tray icon and check for updates, it tells me that my system is up to date.

I investigated a bit the problem but lacks for knowledge with python-apt for solving it completely.
I modified apt-check in order to display the two mysterious packages: these are camlp4 and esound-clients.
These packages are not even installed on my computer.

It appears that the problem comes from the saveDistUpgrade() function: before the call to this function, no package is marked 'install';
but after the call, the two packages are marked 'install'. More precisely, inside saveDistUpgrade(), it is the call depcache.Upgrade(True) that is responsible for the bug.

A simple fix consists in removing this call. Maybe a bug report to python-apt would be more appropriate. I don't know.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-3-686 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages update-notifier depends on:
ii  dbus [dbus-1-utils]      1.2.1-2         simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  gksu                     2.0.0-5         graphical frontend to su
ii  hal                      0.5.11-2        Hardware Abstraction Layer
ii  libart-2.0-2             2.3.20-2        Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0              1.22.0-1        The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0             2.22.0-1        Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0           2.22.0-1        The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                    2.7-10          GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libcairo2                1.6.4-6         The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdbus-1-3              1.2.1-2         simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2         0.76-1          simple interprocess messaging syst
ii  libgconf2-4              2.22.0-1        GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0              1:2.6.2-1       library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0             2.16.4-2        The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0              2.20.1.1-1      The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0        2.20.1.1-1      A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0             2.20.1.1-1      The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0           1:2.22.0-4      GNOME Virtual File System (runtime
ii  libgtk2.0-0              2.12.10-2       The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libhal1                  0.5.11-2        Hardware Abstraction Layer - share
ii  libice6                  2:1.0.4-1       X11 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libnotify1 [libnotify1-g 0.4.4-3         sends desktop notifications to a n
ii  liborbit2                1:2.14.13-0.1   libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpango1.0-0            1.20.5-1        Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                 1.14-4          lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libsm6                   2:1.0.3-2       X11 Session Management library
ii  libx11-6                 2:1.1.4-2       X11 client-side library
ii  libxml2                  2.6.32.dfsg-2   GNOME XML library
ii  notification-daemon      0.3.7-1+b1      a daemon that displays passive pop
ii  python                   2.5.2-1         An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-apt               0.7.6           Python interface to libapt-pkg
ii  update-manager           0.68.debian-6   GNOME application that manages sof
ii  update-notifier-common   0.70.7.debian-3 Files shared between update-notifi

update-notifier recommends no packages.

update-notifier suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information