[Bug 1052360] Re: unattended-upgrade crashed with SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2) for an unknown reason

[Olaf Meeuwissen]

Just happened to me on trusty, installed yesterday.

Looking at my unattended-upgrades-dpkg log, it was immediately clear
that in my case it had nothing to do with unattended-upgrades itself.
There was a minor problem with the configuration options of one of the
programs that got invoked through the scriptlets in
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/.  This caused that program (git, if you have to
know) to exit with an error.  The error travelled up the call chain,
finally arriving at unattended-upgrades which gets the blame.

I guess that most of the people commenting here are experiencing
something similar: unattended-upgrades getting blamed for an error
condition that happens somewhere completely else.  Please look at the
unattended-upgrades-dpkg log before blaming unattended-upgrades.

Re #14, looks like some other process grabbed the lock sometime before
unattended-upgrades got to call dpkg (via apt?).  It could perhaps be
somewhat cleverer about that but if dpkg cannot do its work, there's not
much unattended-upgrades can do about that than complain and exit with
an error status.  In case of a lock, it could reschedule itself or wait
until the lock becomes available.

Re #11, could be a botched PATH when run from cron.

Writing this up, I get the impression that apport is being (ab?)used to
report cron jobs that exited unsuccessfully.  In the not-so-old days, I
would have expected something like this in the mail.  Not a popup
inviting me to send a crash report.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1052360

Title:
  unattended-upgrade crashed with SystemError: E:Sub-process
  /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2) for an unknown reason

Status in “unattended-upgrades” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  Happens by itself

  ProblemType: Crash
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
  Package: unattended-upgrades 0.73ubuntu1.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-26.42-generic 3.0.42
  Uname: Linux 3.0.0-26-generic i686
  ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
  Architecture: i386
  Date: Tue Sep 18 09:24:15 2012
  ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" - Release i386 (20111012)
  InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.7
  PackageArchitecture: all
  ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=en_US:en
   PATH=(custom, no user)
   LANG=en_US.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/sh
  PythonArgs: ['/usr/bin/unattended-upgrade']
  SourcePackage: unattended-upgrades
  Title: unattended-upgrade crashed with SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
  Traceback: SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
  UserGroups:
   
  mtime.conffile..etc.apt.apt.conf.d.50unattended.upgrades: 2012-08-24T13:58:31.952771

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