Update-manager sometimes pops up a tray icon complaining that I need to update (I haven't figured out how it decides when to complain). Update-manager itself displays the message, "The package information was last updated n days ago" where today n is 17. Actually, I've updated repeatedly today.
I've traced this to /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/UpdateManager/UpdateManager.py in the method _get_last_apt_get_update_text(). That function determines the last update by calling stat on /var/lib/apt/periodic/update-success-stamp. That file was last modified on 2008-06-11, even though I've updated successfully today (2008-06-29). This is a new machine, and the last modified date is approximately when I installed Ubuntu on it (I don't remember the exact date).
I don't know whether this is problem with update-manager, or with apt. I've tried updating both via update-manager and aptitude. That file simply doesn't get touched.
Thanks for your bugreport.
Could you please give me the full terminal output of:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ echo $?
$ ls -l /var/lib/
The way its implemented is that if one repository fails to update then the file is not touched. The output of the commands hopefully gives us a idea what goes wrong.
Thanks,
Michael