Software Updater: Cannot change options for "When there are security updates: "

[xiujk71]

This happened on both ZorinOS 16 Core and ZorinOS 15.3 Lite.

ZorinOS 16 Core:

ZorinOS 15.3 Lite:

How did I even get here?

1. Fresh install. (on vmware)
2. Install open-vm-tools-desktop (vmware tools, tho I doubt this should affect anything) & update the OS using software updater.
3. Reboot
4. Open up Software & Updates. Change "When there are security updates: " to "Download and Install"
5. Close Software & Updates, and open it again.

The option should be greyed out in ZorinOS 15.3 Lite, and ZorinOS 16 Core after doing these 5 steps (in particularly step 4 & 5). Doing a reboot does not allow me to change new options.

Any idea how this bug happened, and what can I do to revert it?

Also I would like to take the chance to ask, how does automatic update works on ZorinOS (and presumably Ubuntu too I guess) ? What should be done to prevent an OS from failing on next boot when an automatic update is going on?

[Aravisian]

This is a long standing bug in Gnomes software-properties-gtk application:

Bug #1554099 “Changing what action for security updates unusable...” : Bugs :...

The short of it is, for the application to call on Unattended upgrades requires the application to both set a time (future) if user selection is allowed, and to immediately install Security Updates - which is an "impossible situation."

It must be one or the other and cannot be both. This bug remains unfixed, in spite of earlier reports that this was fixed by Ubuntu 18.04.

The good news is, you are defaulted to security updates being made immediately available, so you are safe, even if the GUI function is unusable.

[xiujk71]

Thank you for the fast response
Kind of a sad that the GUI have this bug for a long time.