[SOLVED] Questions about Discover and updates

[Qqmike]

I have two questions, the first one may be solved, but I list it here for the record or if anyone had new thoughts about it.

Question #1: Maybe Solved, but please read if interested as it may be an open issue.

I see the updates icon in system tray, hit it, Discover comes up saying I have 5 updates (but Muon says 10--and there ARE 10), I hit Update (on that Discover screen), and nothing happens--it freezes, can't close it, it says it is in process, 0% complete, can't re-boot except by hitting the hard re-boot button on the computer ...
But then I see this:
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...-start-updates

where Snowhog says:

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

which I tried, and it seems to have gotten rid of that frozen screen,
EXCEPT I had to do a hard re-boot of the machine (the updates included a kernel update, but I couldn't re-boot without using the machine's hard re-boot button).

So that is Issue #1 re Discover.

Question #2
I use Muon. But I see that Discover is handling the updates when I hit the update icon in the system tray.
Is this what everyone else is using? I thought in 14.04 it was Muon handling those updates.
Anyone having issues with this Discover pop-up screen for updates?

[SpecialEd]

My Discover has been off and on since the upgrade to 18.04. I was using

pkcon refresh 
pkcon update -y

with Neon and

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get  dist-upgrade

for Kubuntu.

[claydoh]

Discover is the handler for updates, even with Muon. Muon itself has no automatic update/notification capacity, that part has always been a secondary program, though in the past (14.04) the two were part of the same code base, iirc, while now it is now a part of Discover when that became a separate project.

Recently, Discover occasionally freezes before it can actually do anything, and trying to close it fails as you saw. You can "kill" it via ctrl-alt-esc, and use another method. This will avoid the need to hard-reset.
I believe it is a known bug at the moment. It does not seem to happen on Neon anymore so i imagine the next Kubuntu update will remedy this.

Also, the updater may show some updates, say 2, but since then a few more packages arrive in the repos after it has done its checking, which is why you see a discrepancy sometimes. This can make Discover show more items to install after the initial 2 were done.

[claydoh]

My Discover has been off and on since the upgrade to 18.04. I was using

pkcon refresh 
pkcon update -y

with Neon and

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get  dist-upgrade

for Kubuntu.

You can use either one on either distro, as well as apt update and apt-full-upgrade
Us long time Kubuntu users are used to to the way apt works in *buntu, but Neon users, coming from a variety of places, are not as familiar with the differences between Ubuntu and Debian. Neon wisely chose to go with one way that everyone can understand, especially as it is what Discover (and maybe Muon?) do under the surface. All of them are using dpkg to do the heavy lifting in the end

[Qqmike]

OK SpecialEd and claydoh (and Snowhog in a previous thread about this) -- Thanks. Hitting the nail on the head for me here.

[wartnose]

I notice Discover fails to ask for my password on my KVM Virtual machines (KDENeon and Kunbuntu 18.04) and then just sits there and does nothing. I thought it was just a virtual machine issue but I guess not. It works on my desktop (Kubuntu 16.04).

[jglen490]

I don't let Discover do much of anything on my machine. If I see the icon in the tray, I just go to konsole and use apt to install any updates. I will use Muon for finding and installing software where I know the name or something about the description. I can't say that I never use Discover, but its functionality is well covered by both Muon and apt. I know Discover is a "store" where you can select software from categories of similar products, but I don't find it all that useful.

[Qqmike]

Just noting that Discover not fixed yet, but the fix (above) works,
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

And thanks claydoh for the tip,

You can "kill" it via ctrl-alt-esc, and use another method. This will avoid the need to hard-reset.

That's really neat--cursor turns into the kill icon so you can use it to close out Discover.

[Qqmike]

I think "they" need to fix this bug with Discover. Not everyone will know what to do when their updater fails.

[Qqmike]

Now this was weird:

This morning, I saw the updater icon in the system tray indicating an update was available, I was busy with something else and so ignored it, and while working I saw that--apparently--the update automatically took place, and I got the message-icon that a re-boot was necessary! It turned out to be a kernel update, no less (according to the History in Muon). Not a good idea to be taking updates automatically.

I checked my setting in Discover and in Muon, and I don't see where I have checked anything like 'accept updates automatically.'

Can someone double-check me on WHERE I should check for that?

And, anyone else getting this behavior from the Discover updater?

[Qqmike]

Yeah, it happened on the Desktop and the laptop this morning ... I watched the laptop very carefully, and I didn't even see the update take place--no password asked for, nothing.

[wartnose]

Yeah, it happened on the Desktop and the laptop this morning ... I watched the laptop very carefully, and I didn't even see the update take place--no password asked for, nothing.

same here

[wartnose]

Open Discover and click hamburger>>Advanced>>software sources>>updates. Mine is set to load security updates automatically

[Qqmike]

SOLVED:

wartnose: Open Discover and click hamburger>>Advanced>>software sources>>updates. Mine is set to load security updates automatically

Ah, yes, that did it. I set that to "only notify me..." Thanks.

[Qqmike]

Looks like that (automatic) is the default behavior of Discover, a first time for me. Changed that on both laptop and desktop.