DPKG – How to Unlock /var/lib/dpkg/lock

dpkgdropboxlocksoftware-center

I attempted to install dropbox on my Ubuntu system, but now I am unable to install or uninstall any software. I get this error:

E: Unable to lock the administration directory /var/lib/dpkg/lock?

I have already tried killing dpkg and restarting it sudo kill -TERM PID but it immediately tries to finish the installation again and gets stuck.

How do I resolve this?

Best Answer

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock should do the trick. You can use ps afx|grep dpkg to check if there is still a process runnning at the same time. sudo killall dpkg will stop all running dpkg processes.

If you need to cancel the dropbox installation, try sudo dpkg --force-remove-reinstreq --remove nautilus-dropbox

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Ubuntu – Cannot open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock permission denied–even using sudo

Your very First step should have been

sudo dpkg --set-selections < package.list && sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

The following error

E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13: Permission denied)

would have never occurred , Even second time you used the same code, and got same error.

Try the right command by adding sudo as per above , and post your findings.

NOTE : The use of && enables you to execute multiple commands on same line , in the usual sense && only executes the second command if the first command returns a value reporting success . Therefore ,sudo here needs to be specified in second command .

Best Answer

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Ubuntu – Cannot open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock permission denied–even using sudo

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