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12.04 (precise) 64-bit Kernel Linux 3.2.0-39 3.6GB memory Intel Core 2 Duo CPU @ 2.40GHz x2 WUBI-installed Ubuntu running on a MacBook Pro 7.1 with OSX running Vista via Boot Camp (hey, I like lots of OS's m'kay?)

When installing from Ubuntu software center my system very frequently freezes. This has happened 4 of the last 5 installs. Most recently I was installing the Google Earth .deb from Google's website: clicking the .deb file automatically opens Software Center (otherwise I would have used Synaptic, as I've grown to expect Software Center to freeze my system and I'm rather tired of it.)

By "freeze" I mean nothing works: no dash, no launcher, no mouse movement, no alt-tab, can't open terminal (keyboard does not work). Software center does show the "installing" icon but after that it greys out and I can't click anything.

REISUB has no effect but a cold power-down and restart is possible.

Occasionally, after 5-10 minutes, I'll be able to move the mouse / use the keyboard and run a launcher command or two, although other open apps (Chrome and Software Center) will still be greyed-out/frozen. (I've never waited longer than that - if still unresponsive after 15 minutes I just power down and restart.)

Most recently, which is why I am finally posting a question, I waited about 15 minutes and was finally able to open System Monitor while this was going on. Processes tells me that System Monitor is using about 20% of CPU, and nothing else is using much (zeros mostly). In fact I didn't even see Software Center listed? However at this point the system finally partially unfroze, the installation completed, and while I wasn't about to close Software Center I was able to do a system shutdown and fresh restart and I went and took a look at the syslog.

In /var/log/syslog I see a lot of ":blocked for more than 120 seconds" messages. Similar to

ubuntu hang out with this message :blocked for more than 120 seconds

Which has not been answered, and I'm not running a virtual machine.

My full syslog with stack traces looks very, very similar to this:

Why do tasks on Amazon Xen instance block for over 120 seconds causing server to hang?

Note that that question was solved, but that's because the problem was being caused by Amazon and Amazon fixed the bug. I'm not running anything Amazon-related. My syslog does look very similar, however.

My question is also similar to this:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/168068/troubleshooting-server-hang

But the referenced "duplicate" in that question is about how to kill processes/restart when the system freezes. I know how to kill processes and restart. I want to figure out what is causing the problem so I can try to fix it. I realize that I could just use Synaptic instead of Ubuntu Software Center, but I'd like to try to solve the problem if possible.

I'm thinking I should perhaps submit a bug report, but I wanted to first see if anyone else was having any similar problems, and if so what you all did to fix it.

I see a number of questions about Software Center freezing and others, including those I linked, about the "blocked for more than 120 seconds" log error, but I didn't see any question that links the two. I did save a copy of the syslog report if anyone wants to see it, but as mentioned it's quite similar to the one posted in the Amazon-related question...and I didn't want to take up even more space unnecessarily as, my apologies - this question has already become extremely verbose!

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I got something similar, install with mini.iso on CD, so I hit Esc and the startup screen change to text mode, so I can see what happen, so I found 1/120 seconds value searching for IP, the file in my computer is url_helper.py, so try push the Esc key when you got the ubuntu logo on the screen and read what cause this 120 delay

Any way I try to change these value to, and looks like an Ubuntu cloud issue on the start up, hope this help you, I still searching for how to edit the 120 second value in the url_help.py routine, removed the IP searching or some kind of code that ignore this, if not network it's available.

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  • Thanks. I upgraded to 13.04 and have as yet had no problems. I also try to use Synaptic or install from terminal as much as possible. If I get a repeat of the problem I will do what you suggest and post the results.
    – nbm
    Nov 9, 2013 at 15:24
  • I'm going to accept this answer so as to close the question. As I no longer run 12.04 and have not repeated the problem in 13.04, I have no way to test. Anyone with a similar problem in 12.04 ought to try Javier Sanchez Conde's suggestion first, and open a new question to follow up if that does not work..
    – nbm
    Nov 21, 2013 at 4:03

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