All Errors

The unattended-upgrades service encountered an error during automatic package updates. This typically indicates broken dependencies, held packages, or insufficient disk space preventing the upgrade process from completing successfully.

The dpkg post-installation script for linux-image failed with exit status 1, typically due to a full /boot partition, incompatible kernel modules, or corrupted package metadata. This can be fixed by freeing space, removing old kernels, or reconfiguring dpkg.

This error occurs when apt's package cache becomes corrupted, typically due to interrupted updates or version mismatches between 32-bit and 64-bit libc6 packages. It prevents installing any software even though the system otherwise functions normally.

This error occurs when apt cannot find the snapd package in your configured repositories. Common on distributions where snapd is not in default repositories (Debian, Linux Mint) or when package lists are outdated. Fix by updating package lists, enabling the universe repository (Ubuntu), or removing snapd blocks (Mint).

APT refuses to update repositories when release metadata changes unexpectedly. Use --allow-releaseinfo-change flag or the apt command to accept these changes and resume updating.

APT prompts this when a repository changes metadata like Suite or Origin, typically during major Debian releases. Accept the changes to continue updates.

The srcpkgcache.bin file in APT's cache directory has become corrupted, preventing APT from reading source package metadata. This is typically resolved by clearing the corrupted cache files and rebuilding the cache.

This error occurs when dpkg metadata files in /var/lib/dpkg/info/ are corrupted, usually due to interrupted installations or disk errors. You can fix it by manually adding the missing newline, deleting the corrupted file, or reconfiguring dpkg.

The dpkg available file is missing or corrupted, preventing package installations. This file tracks available packages from repositories and can be rebuilt by merging package lists from apt.

This error occurs when apt-listchanges cannot find a valid locale configuration on your system. Your locale environment variables (LC_* and LANG) are either unset, invalid, or pointing to locales that haven't been generated.

This error occurs when APT detects a circular dependency involving Pre-Depends declarations, preventing it from determining the correct installation order. It typically happens during upgrades when multiple packages have strict pre-dependency requirements on each other.

The "paste subprocess was killed by signal" error occurs during package installation when dpkg encounters a subprocess failure, typically caused by file conflicts, insufficient disk space, or package database corruption. Resolve by checking disk space, fixing broken packages, or forcing package overwrites.

The apt-listchanges package has unmet dependencies preventing package operations. This typically occurs due to missing Python dependencies or incomplete previous operations, and can be resolved by fixing broken packages and reconfiguring failed installs.

This warning appears when APT keys are stored in the deprecated /etc/apt/trusted.gpg file instead of the new /etc/apt/keyrings directory. While it doesn't block updates, apt-key is deprecated and will be removed in future Ubuntu/Debian versions.

APT cannot read or parse package list files, preventing installations and updates. This happens when cache files become corrupted during failed downloads or system interruptions. Rebuild the package cache by removing corrupted files.

This error occurs when a new Debian version is released, causing your system's release to transition from stable to oldstable. Use apt-get update --allow-releaseinfo-change to accept the change and continue updating packages.

This error occurs when apt's package cache at /var/lib/apt/lists/ is corrupted or contains invalid files. This typically happens after interrupted downloads, filesystem errors, or incomplete updates. The fix is to safely clear the corrupted cache and rebuild it with apt update.

APT fails when executing post-invoke scripts after package updates, often due to corrupted cache files or problematic metadata packages. Fix by clearing cache, reinstalling libappstream4, or checking script permissions.

Debconf cannot find a dialog frontend (dialog or whiptail) to display configuration prompts. This is a common issue in minimal Linux installations and containers where these UI packages are not pre-installed.

APT warns when you switch to the experimental distribution. Learn what this means, why it happens, and how to safely use experimental packages with proper pinning to avoid system breakage.