Ubuntu – “Software Updater” & “Software & Updates” not working

package-managementupdate-manager

I havent used my Ubuntu for quite a long time. Today, when I booted Ubuntu (14.04 LTS), the software updater and Software & Updates (from Settings) are not working.

The software updater's window will show up for around 1 sec, but it will close automatically. Software & Updates is never shown, no matter how many times I click the icon. Note that neither of them show any error message.

Those 2 features were working perfectly the last time I used Ubuntu. I want to do some system upgrade and update.

For now, I use sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade. This command runs very fast, meaning (I think) my Ubuntu is not updated properly. The update from software updater always has a big size hence the download should be slower.

What should I do?

Can I just uninstall and reinstall both of them? If I can, how to do it?

Just to clarify, I don't want to upgrade my Ubuntu version (I want the LTS one), I just want to upgrade the software/packages I used.

Thanks for your time.

Best Answer

This is a common thing which is simply solved. These commands clear the "phantom" or "hung" lists and may have to be used again as needed in the future for similar bug: 

sudo rm -rvf /var/lib/apt/lists/*

and then: 

sudo apt-get update

You may need to reboot computer for it to effect completely by typing: 

sudo shutdown -r now
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