Update Manager renders Ubuntu Lucid in guest read-only

[Astro]

I don't know what else to try. Been stuck with this for weeks now.

My guest is running Ubuntu Lucid, and I have been having a persisting problem. Everything works fine - until the Update Manager window pops up. From this point on:
- my system becomes read-only: no operation involving saving files can be performed anymore.
- trying to open a terminal or a gedit will make the background of it grey (instead of the black $ prompt, or the white input).
- trying to update doesn't work either.

This is very annoying, since it means I have only ten minutes to do anything before popping up the screen.

Other sites recommended me trying one of the following.

i - focusing on 'fixing' the read-only: using fsck or fdisk.
Since there is a big, big warning about not using it with unmounted partitions etc, and the tip was directed to normal systems (not virtual machines in particular), I found this would be too risky to even try.

ii - focusing on the 'trigger': try to disable Updating.
I didn't succeed.
= Going through software center seems to make the update trigger.
= locate update-notifier | grep home && [del folder] didn't work
= apt-get remove update-notifier didn't work either.

Any further ideas would be very appreciated. Can you help me?


I am using Vbox 3.2.12.
Guest additions installed.

[Perryg]

Terribly sorry to hear you are having problems, but I don't see how we can actually help you since it is not a VirtualBox issue.
Have you registered at The Ubuntu Forums to see if they can help you?

[Astro]

Terribly sorry to hear you are having problems, but I don't see how we can actually help you since it is not a VirtualBox issue.
Have you registered at The Ubuntu Forums to see if they can help you?

Hi, and thanks for the reply.

Here is the thing: I become convinced it has to do with the fact I am running it in Virtual Box.

It is Ubuntu host with Ubuntu guest.
And since I performed the same step-by-step to install the host OS as I did to install the guest OS, and this issue is happening only in the virtual machine, my hypothesis is that the locking is somewhat related to something specific about the guest. The host does not lock in with the Update Manager.

Does that seem plausible? If so, what could be possible explanations for what is going on that are specific of "guest" environment?

Thank you.

[Perryg]

Absolutely not. I have at last count hundreds of guests installed over various host OSes and I do not see this locking problem you describe.
Prove it to yourself and install another Ubuntu guest and see, but there is simply nothing that I know of that will cause this except the OS itself.

[Astro]

I will defer to your experience - so, strong evidence it is caused by the OS alone.
Will try to find other options.

Thank you, Perryg.