update notifier tells you to reboot before the upgrade is complete

Confirming.

The notifier needs a new check coded - it needs to go into a busy state if there is an upgrade being performed. During this, it should display a busy icon and wait for apt/adept/aptitude/synaptic processes to finish (i.e. release their lock on the package db).

I can confirm that this is still happening.
//Pascal

From my duplicate bug #372460: This is probably due to this absurdly small timeout in update-notifier-0.78/src/update-notifier.c:

#define TIMEOUT_APT_RUN 120 /* 120 sec */

Though even if the timeout expires, update-notifier should check to see whether a package manager is still working, instead of advising the user to immediately reboot which would forcefully abort the operation in progress.

Thanks Andreas!

I made the timeout much bigger (600s) so this should be less of a problem in the future.

For update-notifier-kde I would suggest to follow the logic that update-notifier uses and
not show the reboot required when the file appears but when the file is there and the
dpkg-run-stamp file is touched.

I attach a *UNTESTED* patch for u-n-kde, someone from the u-n-kde developers may find
it useful. It will only check for reboot required if the apt dir changed (i.e. the dpkg-run-stamp
file got touched).

This bug was fixed in the package update-notifier - 0.86

---------------
update-notifier (0.86) karmic; urgency=low

  [ Sebastien Bacher ]
  * debian/rules:
    - build using --as-needed to reduce the depends

  [ Dustin Kirkland ]
  * debian/update-notifier-common.dirs: update-notifier-common
    needs /etc/update-motd.d, rather than /etc/update-motd.d/hourly;
    causes this directory to *not* be removed on update-motd package
    removal/upgrade

  [ Michael Vogt ]
  * src/update-notifier.c:
    - if display can not be opened, show a propper error message
      and do not crash (LP: #317745)
  * src/apt_check.py:
    - count security updates correctly even when they are "shadowed"
      by a regular update (LP: #394958)
    - fix typo (thanks to Hew McLachlan)
  * data/update-motd-updates-available, debian/99update-notifier:
    - move updates available from /var/run to /var/lib/update-notifier
      to make it persistent over reboots
  * src/update-notifier.c:
    - make the timeout for no-activity from apt bigger (LP: #274001)
  * data/update-notifier.desktop.in:
    - better description for the auto startup (LP: #146918)
  * src/update-notifier.c:
    - use GAppInfo/GAppLaunchContext to provide startup notification
      support (LP: #46258)

 -- Michael Vogt <email address hidden> Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:50:46 +0200

This bug was fixed in the package update-notifier-kde - 9.10ubuntu1

---------------
update-notifier-kde (9.10ubuntu1) karmic; urgency=low

  [ Florian Reinhard ]
  * Respect kdesudo's exit code. Prevents tray icon from disappearing even
    though package installation failed for whatever reason.

  [ Harald Sitter ]
  * Bump standards version to 3.8.3
  * Add missing depends on install-package
  * Change codecTray icon form system-run to download which is much more
    suitable. This is an intermediate workaround until we can get rid of the
    tray (as seen for update notification in Kpk) (LP: #396255)
  * Invoke terminal commands using KToolInvocation rather than KProcess, regular
    cdms still get started via KProcess since we cannot use KTI for that.
    (LP: #323459)
  * Make the reboot action not act upon touches of /var/lib/update-notifier but
    once /var/lib/update-notifier/dpkg-run-stamp is touched to prevent the
    reboot icon from appearing before update is done. As suggested by Michael
    Vogt (LP: #274001)
  * Add misc:Depends for debhelper
  * Add python dependency for lintian
  * Kill original maintainer field, does not exist for native packages
  * Change maintainer from Ubuntu core dev to Kubuntu developers
  * Revise version scheme to $SERIESubuntuX (works with dch and prevents lintian
    from thinking this is a NMU)

 -- Harald Sitter <email address hidden> Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:35:53 +0200