Hi, Locutus I went to the Mint forums and there is already a thread open on the virtualbox-guest-utils package and yes, it seems that the issue was related to a "buggy" virtualbox-guest-utils.
The issue was solved on Mint 18.x by the removal of the said package triggered by updating the Update Manager to v.5.2.1.2. This buggy package was deemed not necessary for desktop computers running Mint 18.x versions (including running Mint as the host OS in Oracle VirtualBox). A comment on this thread by Clem (Mint's Team Leader) can be found here: https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=266431&p=1449369&hilit=virtualbox+guest+utils#p1449369 For people running Mint 18.x as the guest OS the best fix so far is still to downgrade the package from v.5.1 to the v.5.0 version of this package by running on the Terminal on the guest side the command "sudo apt-get install virtualbox-guest-utils=5.0.18-dfsg-2build1", as simply removing the virtualbox-guest-utils package will also remove the "extra" functionalities such as USB 3 support on the guest OS. This package downgrade is of course only successful in downgrading the package via the above command if the older v.5.0.x version was not manually purged from the cached install packages on the guest OS. The same command via the Terminal can also be used by people running Mint 18.x without VirtualBox or running Mint 18.x as their guest OS and who affected by this bug and who cannot launch Synaptic and the Update Manager (and thus cannot upgrade the Update Manager to trigger the removal of the buggy package). After downgrading the package and cold rebooting the rig the removal of this buggy package should be triggered after the refresh of the availables updates through the Update Manager, thus solving the issue. Regarding the cause of the conflicts crashing multiple processes with this buggy package, my impression is that Clem and the rest of the Mint Team did not even want to delve too deep, which I also agree would be counterproductive and a waste of time and brains to try to fix a package which is not required other than people running the Mint 18.x OS as a guest (and for whom downgrading the package is an effective, reliable, simple and fast fix). -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1758946 Title: virtualbox-guest-utils update caused Synaptic to stop working To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/virtualbox/+bug/1758946/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
