This guide will help gather information that would be useful when creating a single, new question at
Please only create a NEW question at if you do not have an open question about this issue yet. If you already have an open question at then please add the Terminal output below to the thread which was previously opened.
In order to gather essential troubleshooting information about your apt-get or aptitude or synaptic package manager in Ubuntu, please follow this procedure.
The only supported releases of Ubuntu are the ones that are NOT End of Life (EOL) in the following table:
Step 1 Switch to "Main Server" using Software Sources
First switch from the regional server (US, UK, Swiss, etc...) to the "Main Server" using the Software Sources window
You can open up the Software Sources window by running the Update Manager. If you are using the Gnome Classic desktop it can be found in the menu (System > Administration > Update Manager). If you are Using Unity click the top icon in the dash and search for "update manager". In the update manager click on the Settings button at the lower-left corner of the window, and entering your password if prompted to do so.
See here for details and a screenshot of the main tab of the Software Sources window:
If you are unable to start "Update Manager" or unable to access Software Sources or Ubuntu Software Center, please skip step 1 and step 2 and proceed to step 3.
Step 2 Disable all PPA repositories
Open "Ubuntu Software Center" - Edit Menu --- Select "Software Sources...", enter your password
Select tab "Other Software"
From the "Other Software" tab, disable all PPA repositories, leaving only the official Ubuntu repositories active. Enabling too many PPA repositories (which are non-official) can cause your package manager to become unstable. If you do decide to re-enable such a PPA repository, I strongly suggest only enabling ONE PPA repository at a time for stability reasons, not several at the same time.
Step 3 Close all open programs
VERY IMPORTANT! Please make sure to close all open programs, including all package managers like Synaptic, Update Manager, Software Center, Add/remove programs, etc ... No other package manager should be running while running the commands below.
Step 4
Open a
In Gnome (classic)
If you are using the Gnome interface, via "Applications->Accessories->Terminal"
In Unity
If you are using the Unity interface, the easiest way to open the Terminal is to use the 'search' function on the dash. Or you can click on the 'More Apps' button, click on the 'See more results' by the installed section, and find it in that list of applications. A third way, available after you click on the 'More Apps' button, is to go to the search bar, and see that the far right end of it says 'All Applications'. You then click on that, and you'll see the full list. Then you can go to Accessories > Terminal after that. So, the methods in Unity are:
Press CTRL-ALT-T key combination.
Dash > Search for Terminal
Dash > More Apps > 'See More Results' > Terminal
Dash > More Apps > Accessories > Terminal
Step 5 List of Terminal commands to execute and send to Launchpad Answers forum
Please copy-paste the following commands one line at a time from the website using Chromium or Firefox into the Linux Terminal.
Tip: If you have a wheel mouse or 3 button mouse you do not need to type commands into the Terminal. Highlight each command on the page using the mouse. Move your cursor anywhere in the Terminal and press the wheel or middle button. Automatic Copy and paste! No spelling mistakes! No Typos! No other errors!
ubuntu-support-status
cat /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/multiarch
dpkg --print-foreign-architectures
sudo grep -R proxy /etc/apt/*
grep proxy /etc/environment
echo $http_proxy
echo $ftp_proxy
grep proxy /etc/bash.bashrc
grep proxy ~/.bashrc
cat /etc/apt/apt.conf
sudo fuser -vvv /var/lib/dpkg/lock
sudo fuser -vvv /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
cat /etc/lsb-release
uname -a
sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
sudo touch /var/lib/dpkg/lock