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CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

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mr.Lauren
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CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#1 Post by mr.Lauren »

On January 12, I responded to the notification by Apper that 4 or 5 upgrades were waiting to be made. I opened Synaptic and proceeded with the upgrade. When it was almost finished, Synaptic stopped with the following error message:
An error occurred
The following details are provided:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.
At the same time, Apper popped up with a message like: "Restart the Computer". HOWEVER, the computer was locked up - it would not respond to Mouse or Keyboard entry.

I finally hit reset, and restarted the computer, but it would not boot. I tried many things, including Debian 8.6 rescue options, live discs, and SystemRescueCD-X86-2.0.0. I finally gave up in dismay, and shut down for the night.

The next morning, I tried booting Debian, and to my shock and amazement, it worked!! So with great expectation, I entered the command "dpkg --configure -a" as SU. It printed 33 lines of text and locked up. I took a picture with my camera (poor focus), and will see if I can add the photo here. --- No, I guess I don't know how to do that. But the first line printed was:
"Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u10) ..."
There are also 14 lines that have in them:
"Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/rtl_nic/rtlxxxxxxxxxx" (xxxx indicating various text)

I was doing a lot of photo work, so I didn't touch the problem for a few days, but I still got bit. Four days later, I forgot to close Gimp before I shut down. The computer wouldn't shut down, nor would it reboot. But it re-booted the next morning! Then on 1/19/18, I decided to again run the "dpkg --configure -a" command, and again it locked up as before. It ran 46 lines of text before it quit. I again took a picture with my camera. This time I got it rebooted that same evening. I "visited" the BIOS before I booted, and I wondered if it's possible that affected the outcome.

I'm at a loss what has caused this. Is it an intermittent in my hardware?? Is it a bug in Debian or the upgrade process? Do you have a clue what might be causing this? I now have 29 upgrades waiting to be applied, but I won't be doing ANY if I don't find this problem, or install a different operating system!

Thanks much!
Last edited by mr.Lauren on 2018-02-01 00:34, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#2 Post by bigrigdriver »

If you have a package upgrade history log (/var/log/apt/history.log, maybe a history.log.gz) of the packages upgraded on Jan. 12, you can use apt-get to downgrade to the previous versions and hopefully fix the problem. The history.log names the package, including version number of the old and upgraded package.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/138284/how-to-down
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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#3 Post by bw123 »

mr.Lauren wrote:
"Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/rtl_nic/rtlxxxxxxxxxx" (xxxx indicating various text)
These msgs come from update-intramfs when it thinks you 'might' need a firmware pkg for a device. Usually the process finishes fine, but it does take awhile. You should let it finish. The dpkg --configure command also shouldn't be interrupted, let it finish. Yeah it might take awhile, but the error msg at the end might give you a hint.

Just focus on getting those to finish, if apt is broken that's the main thing right now.

PS DON'T PANIC MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR DATA AND HAVE A LIVE USB HANDY
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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#4 Post by None1975 »

I do not trust those GUI for updating, installing etc..for updating and upgrading i always use terminal.
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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#5 Post by Wheelerof4te »

Don't know about Apper, but Synaptic is a frontend to aptitude. IIRC, aptitude does package management a bit different that standard apt (apt-get). On a Stable system, there isn't a need for using any of them.
Just

Code: Select all

apt update
apt upgrade
once a week or when you have time will be enough.

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#6 Post by bw123 »

Wheelerof4te wrote:Don't know about Apper, but Synaptic is a frontend to aptitude.
That's a new one on me, are you sure? I do like the terminal better than gui apps. I don't consider aptitude a gui, it shows all terminal output unless you choose not to.
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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#7 Post by Wheelerof4te »

^aptitude is a ncurses-based front-end to apt(-get).
Synaptic is a GUI frontend to aptitude. Nevertheless, on Debian Stable it is easy and quite safe to just use apt(-get) via Terminal.
EDIT: Nevermind the misinformational rambling, Synaptic is a front-end to apt. Too much coffeine today.
Last edited by Wheelerof4te on 2018-01-27 18:00, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#8 Post by bw123 »

Wheelerof4te wrote:^aptitude is a ncurses-based front-end to apt(-get).
Synaptic is a GUI frontend to aptitude.
If that were true, synaptic would need to have aptitude installed as a dependency wouldn't it?
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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#9 Post by Wheelerof4te »

Heh, just checked and returned to edit the post.
You are right, no aptitude dependency, so it's a front-end to apt.

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#10 Post by Bulkley »

None1975 wrote:I do not trust those GUI for updating, installing etc..for updating and upgrading i always use terminal.
+1

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#11 Post by stevepusser »

Try booting a system rescue disk/USB and checking out the health of your hard drive. I'd also look at possible heat related issues. If you have critical data on the disk, make sure you have it backed up.
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mr.Lauren
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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#12 Post by mr.Lauren »

I'm sorry I'm slow responding! I was busy, and therefore watching email for replies. Then I wondered if email was working, and took a look, and found your many responses! Ooops, I hadn't updated my email profile. Thanks for your comments.

I first ran the "dpkg --configure -a" command again to see if there was any significant difference (there were differences and similarities), and to clear up the question raised by bw123:
These msgs come from update-intramfs when it thinks you 'might' need a firmware pkg for a device. Usually the process finishes fine, but it does take awhile. You should let it finish. The dpkg --configure command also shouldn't be interrupted, let it finish. Yeah it might take awhile, but the error msg at the end might give you a hint.
I let it sit for 3 1/2 hours -- that should be enough, shouldn't it? I copied the text from the portion prior to the 14 lines about "Possible missing firmware" that I may list at the end below.

The first comment was:
bigrigdriver wrote:If you have a package upgrade history log (/var/log/apt/history.log, maybe a history.log.gz) of the packages upgraded on Jan. 12, you can use apt-get to downgrade to the previous versions and hopefully fix the problem. The history.log names the package, including version number of the old and upgraded package.
https://askubuntu.com/questions/138284/how-to-down

Yes, I do have that log. It is:
Start-Date: 2018-01-09 09:08:06
Commandline: synaptic
Upgrade: gimp:amd64 (2.8.14-1+deb8u1, 2.8.14-1+deb8u2), libgimp2.0:amd64 (2.8.14-1+deb8u1, 2.8.14-1+deb8u2), libpoppler-glib8:amd64 (0.26.5-2+deb8u1, 0.26.5-2+deb8u2), libpoppler46:amd64 (0.26.5-2+deb8u1, 0.26.5-2+deb8u2), gimp-data:amd64 (2.8.14-1+deb8u1, 2.8.14-1+deb8u2), libpoppler-qt4-4:amd64 (0.26.5-2+deb8u1, 0.26.5-2+deb8u2), poppler-utils:amd64 (0.26.5-2+deb8u1, 0.26.5-2+deb8u2)
End-Date: 2018-01-09 09:08:36

Start-Date: 2018-01-12 09:57:32
Commandline: synaptic
Install: firmware-linux-free:amd64 (3.3, automatic), linux-image-3.16.0-5-amd64:amd64 (3.16.51-3+deb8u1, automatic), ibnuma1:amd64 (2.0.10-1, automatic), irqbalance:amd64 (1.0.6-3+deb8u1, automatic)
Upgrade: linux-image-amd64:amd64 (3.16+63, 3.16+63+deb8u1)
I'm not knowledgeable about this, so you'll have to tell me if I'm right. In the first place, I suppose only the "2018-01-12" info is applicable to this problem. I included both in case I'm wrong. In the "2018-01-12" group, I also assume both "Install" and "Upgrade" groups are suspect. In these two groups, I assume, for examples, that, in "Install", the first "pkg" is "firmware-linux-free:amd64", the existing version is "3.3", and it should be updated to the newest version as indicated by "automatic". In "Upgrade", I assume the first (and only) "pkg" is "linux-image-amd64:amd64", the existing version is "3.16+63", and it should be upgraded to version "3.16+63+deb8u1".

If those are right, then my commands to downgrade these two packages (I understand I have to do this for all pkgs) would be:
"apt-get install «pkg»=«version»" (or)
In Install is: apt-get install firmware-linux-free:amd64=3.3 (and)
In Upgrade is: apt-get install linux-image-amd64:amd64=3.16+63
If all this works, I still have 3 questions: 1. Does doing these commands automatically clear Synaptics mind of the error, and if not, what do I do?; 2. In your link, one person said: "when i type apt-get install pkg=version apt-get offers removing almost half of all installed packages which of course not what i want to do". Do I need to worry about that?; and, 3. The last line of the Syanptic message is "E: _cache->open() failed, please report." says "please report" --- to whom?

Also, stevepusser » 2018-01-28 01:10 noted:
Try booting a system rescue disk/USB and checking out the health of your hard drive. I'd also look at possible heat related issues. If you have critical data on the disk, make sure you have it backed up.
In my original post I had this comment:
I tried many things, including Debian 8.6 rescue options, live discs, and SystemRescueCD-X86-2.0.0.
Do you have any suggestions for checking out the health of my hard drive?

Finally I will type the output of the "dpkg --configure -a" command that I sort of promised above:
#dpkg --configure -a
Setting up linus-image-3.16.0-5-amd64 (3.16.51-3+deb8u1) ...
Vmlinuz(/boot/vmlinz-3.16.0-5-amd64
) points to /boot/vmlinz-3.16.0-5-amd64
(/boot/vmlinz-3.16.0-amd64)--doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/liinux-image-3.16.0-5-amd64.postinst line 263.
initrd.img(/boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-5-amd64
) points to /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-5-amd64
(boot/initrd.img-3,16,0-5-amd64) -- doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-3.16.0-5-amd64.postinst line 263.
/etc/kernel/postinst.d/initramfs-tools:
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.16.0-5-amd64
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/rtl_nic/rtl8168-3.fw for module r8169
W: etc There were 13 more lines nearly identical to the above when it hung
I suppose I may have made a typo or 2 in that typing!

Thanks to every one for any further suggestions you may have.

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#13 Post by mr.Lauren »

Wheelerof4te wrote:Don't know about Apper, but Synaptic is a frontend to aptitude. IIRC, aptitude does package management a bit different that standard apt (apt-get). On a Stable system, there isn't a need for using any of them.
Just

Code: Select all

apt update
apt upgrade
once a week or when you have time will be enough.
I didn't think to ask this when I was answering replies earlier today. Can I use either of these (apt upgrade, or apt update), even though Synaptic is locked up by the error that I was describing in this post?

Thank you.
Lauren

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#14 Post by Thorny »

mr.Lauren wrote:I didn't think to ask this when I was answering replies earlier today. Can I use either of these (apt upgrade, or apt update), even though Synaptic is locked up by the error that I was describing in this post?
Just to quickly answer this post. You need to use both, update, updates the list of packages available, then upgrade does what you would think of as "update" . They have long been unfortunate and confusing terms for inexperienced users to understand and just about everyone, even long time users, often refer to updating a system. The important thing to remember is "update" first then "upgrade". In the GUI Synaptic, the first button on the top left is "reload" which does the update. One of the features of the modern command "apt update" is that it tells you when it finds packages to "upgrade".

I hope I haven't confused you with all that.

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#15 Post by bw123 »

From looking up the msg "doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-3.16.0-5-amd64.postinst line 263."

It looks like it can happen on any kernel, one thread said to try a --reinstall on the kernel, and one suggested fsck the partition with /boot on it. You could do that from a live cd. I'm not sure it would fix things, it might make them worse.

There were a other hits that might be relevant. If you have another kernel installed, boot from that? Anything you do right now with apt will probably try to configure all the pending pkgs again and update initramfs.

I'm not sure what I would do, if anything, except read and check dmesg for drive errors. It might be a good idea to copy that initrd and vmlinuz to some other media if they are the only ones you have to boot from.
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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#16 Post by mr.Lauren »

Thorny wrote: Just to quickly answer this post. You need to use both, update, updates the list of packages available, then upgrade does what you would think of as "update". The important thing to remember is "update" first then "upgrade". In the GUI Synaptic, the first button on the top left is "reload" which does the update. One of the features of the modern command "apt update" is that it tells you when it finds packages to "upgrade".
Well, I did the "apt update", and look what I got, the same thing as before--see boldface text at the bottom:
lauren@Debian8:~$ su
Password:
root@Debian8:/home/lauren# apt update
Ign http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie InRelease
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates InRelease
Get:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie-updates InRelease [145 kB]
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Sources
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/contrib Sources
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie Release.gpg
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie-updates/main Sources
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/contrib amd64 Packages
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie-updates/contrib Sources
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/contrib Translation-en
Get:2 http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie-updates/main amd64 Packages/DiffIndex [10.4 kB]
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Translation-en
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie-updates/contrib amd64 Packages
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie-updates/contrib Translation-en
Get:3 http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en/DiffIndex [3,688 B]
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie Release
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/main Sources
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/main amd64 Packages
Hit http://ftp.us.debian.org jessie/main Translation-en
Fetched 159 kB in 4s (34.9 kB/s)
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
root@Debian8:/home/lauren#
Note the command in bold-face is the same problem I asked about in the beginning! I've also been wondering about another possible source of problem. It was brought to my mind by a comment by bw123 where you said:
by bw123 » 2018-02-01 15:18
From looking up the msg "doing nothing at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-3.16.0-5-amd64.postinst line 263."

It looks like it can happen on any kernel, one thread said to try a --reinstall on the kernel, and one suggested fsck the partition with /boot on it. You could do that from a live cd. I'm not sure it would fix things, it might make them worse.

There were a other hits that might be relevant. If you have another kernel installed, boot from that? Anything you do right now with apt will probably try to configure all the pending pkgs again and update initramfs.

I'm not sure what I would do, if anything, except read and check dmesg for drive errors. It might be a good idea to copy that initrd and vmlinuz to some other media if they are the only ones you have to boot from.

You mentioned kernel impact (see bold-face), and also about other kernels. This is a subject I'm quite ignorant on, but maybe a little "confession" is in order. Thurs. (day before yesterday) I booted into MEPIS 11 and Linux Mint 18.2 (2 of the active OS's I have on this GRUB), to see what the state of Synaptic is on those. It seemed normal on both. I didn't check while there, but the MEPIS kernel is probably 2.6.36, and Mint is probably 4.4 or 4.8. My Deb 8.6 is kernel 3.16.0-4-amd64. Now, the part that I'm wondering about is that Mint shares the User Partition with this Deb. 8.6. Yes, I did read some warnings that some bad things could happen, but ignorance is bliss, and the advantages were just too great to resist. And I may have gotten bit by one of those "things" that might happen--I couldn't boot Firefox when I came back to Deb., so I spent a lot of time getting that fixed.
Do you think I shot myself in the foot?? Any other suggestions? Should I bail out into Mint? I just installed it about 3 months ago, and hadn't gotten used to it's rough edges yet (compared to Debian, that is). --- Thanks!

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#17 Post by Thorny »

This was all I was trying to answer, you were already getting help with the rest of your issue, sorry, I won't butt into your threads any longer.
mr.Lauren wrote: I didn't think to ask this when I was answering replies earlier today. Can I use either of these (apt upgrade, or apt update),...
Thorny wrote: Just to quickly answer this post. You need to use both, update, updates the list of packages available, then upgrade does what you would think of as "update". The important thing to remember is "update" first then "upgrade".
After rereading the whole thread, I guess what I would try would be along the lines of what bw123 suggested. Boot up with the previous kernel and purge the ...-5 kernel, then reinstall the ...-5 kernel. By the way, Jessie is currently at 8.10, you should probably try to upgrade more often.

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#18 Post by mr.Lauren »

Thorny wrote:
This was all I was trying to answer, you were already getting help with the rest of your issue, sorry, I won't butt into your threads any longer.
Oh, NO! Don't think that! I was really appreciating your advice. I realize now, going back and re-reading my comment, it sounds sarcastic, as if I was blaming you! My comment I'm talking about was "Well, I did the "apt update", and look what I got, the same thing as before". Terrible choice of words! I had been wondering whether the problem was deep where apt works, or on the surface, possibly in Synaptic, which might be fixed by uninstalling it. So "look what I got" meant "Wow, this must be serious, not a simple Synaptic problem, and not something I will be able to figure out." I guess that would have been a good place to use a "smiley" :shock:

I'm sure the half sentence where I said: "It was brought to my mind by a comment by bw123 where you said:" didn't help any either! I was trying to switch persons I was talking to. I should have ended the paragraph to you, Thorny, and started a new paragraph to you, bw123. Too much of a hurry! I'm sorry to both of you, and, again, thanks for your help!

Lauren

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#19 Post by Thorny »

I am not as thin skinned as some people around here so it wasn't a problem for me.
I was apologising for not reading everything and just answering that one question. Did you try and purge that kernel and then reinstalling it? I think I would probably try upgrading while I was booted into the older kernel if I was doing it. The info that bw123 found made sense to me.

That's really all I have.

[edit] Don't forget to update before upgrade. :-)

[edit2] You do have an older kernel to boot into, don't you? If not don't reboot with no kernel installed, that won't be successful.

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Re: CAN'T UPGRADE DEBIAN 8.6--SYNAPTIC AND APPER ARE LOCKED

#20 Post by Thorny »

Okay a new day for me and I am not as tired.

I hope the fact that you haven't posted again is due to you ending your day and not that you have somehow trashed your system.

I realise how frustrating it can be when there is a problem and one doesn't understand it or know what to do.

This is going to be long, sorry about that but I may not be here when you come back and I will try to cover as much as I can.

Your posting style is fairly jumbled, you seem to try advice from several posters at once and then try to reply to all of them and throw in a lot of extraneous info too, like telling us about MEPIS 11 and Mint, they aren't going to touch your Debian install except maybe in your /home which, if I understood you correctly (and there is no guarantee of that), you are sharing your home with.

You need to remain calm, don't panic, only try one thing at a time and if it doesn't make things better, make sure you back out of what you tried and get back to the same point as before you tried it so you can try something else.

Your situation reminds me of someone who writes, "I pushed all the buttons and nothing works". Sometimes pushing all the buttons is what causes nothing to work. ;-)

You need to take a methodological approach. Perhaps have a pad of paper and physically write down in order what you do to keep your thinking focused. And, so that you know exactly what you did.

bw123 found info that suggested a kernel reinstall or filesystem check might correct the problem. That was likely from an Internet search for problems similar to yours.

stevepusser, suggested checking the health of your hard drive or maybe a heat problem.

Both of those posters are intelligent users and I concur. You will note that I have been suggesting you try the kernel removal and reinstall like bw123 suggested, that has some potential to work as that should remove the postinstall script that fails at line 263 and install a new one with the reinstall. In my opinion it's worth trying.
[A caution]: If you choose to use either apt or apt-get, don't have Synaptic running at the same time. I don't know about Apper because I don't use KDE but I think it is a package manager and you don't want more than one package manager running at the same time.

Both stevepusser and bw123 suggested a possibility of file corruption and a filesystem check of your Debian system (which you would need to do from one of your other installed operating systems because you don't want the Debian partition mounted while doing it.) It's a possibility.

The other thing that stevepusser suggested is a possible heat problem. That is also worth investigating as the lockups you mention seem to occur when you are doing CPU intensive tasks, like photo editing, you mentioned it occurring while using GIMP. And, trying a big update probably keeps the system busy too. The fact that after waiting for a time after the lockup, the system boots again is consistent with possible heat problem. Although, if it is heat buildup related I would expect it to also lockup in your other operating systems while they were doing CPU intensive tasks.

I thought of one more thing to add, you could check memory which should be one of the choices at the GRUB menu. Heat might or might not affect it too. I don't think this is very likely but if nothing else works...

I don't think you mentioned what computer you are trying this on. Is it old, might the fan be clogged with dust? Is the hard drive old, but even a new one can fail or corrupt data. Do you have a good backup as suggested by both bw123 and stevepusser? Everyone should have a good current backup and know how to restore things from it.

Good luck!

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