Bug#711500: gnome-settings-daemon: "Could not get updates. Failed to process request. Operation was cancelled"

[Simon McVittie]

Package: gnome-settings-daemon
Version: 3.4.2+git20121218.7c1322-3
Severity: important
Justification: usability: repeatedly nags user
Tags: patch upstream

On a GNOME laptop installed as squeeze and upgraded to wheezy, this prompt
intermittently (once per hour?) pops up as a GNOME modal dialog:

    *Could not get updates*
    Failed to process request
    -------------------------
    |Operation was cancelled|
    -------------------------
                      [Close]

According to GNOME Shell, it belongs to "Software Updates"; according
to xwininfo, it belongs to a gpk-update-viewer process.

I'm initially reporting this bug against gnome-settings-daemon
(with an X-Debbugs-Cc to gnome-packagekit), because there are many similar
bug reports for Red Hat, which are said to be fixed by this g-s-d commit:

https://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-settings-daemon/commit/?id=7901a81c0736c3498439cf73aefb95951e297854

I'm going to try out that patch and see whether it resolves this.

The list of dependencies below is the union of the dependencies of
both g-s-d and g-pk.

It's possible that I have too many system components all trying to update
the system: upgrading from squeeze has left this laptop with aptdaemon
(for software-center and software-properties-gtk), packagekit,
packagekit-backend-aptcc, synaptic and unattended-upgrades
(in its default configuration of "download but do not install packages").

Perhaps removing one or more of those would yield better results: what is
the recommended GUI apt setup for a non-expert user these days?

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.0
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages related to gnome-settings-daemon or gnome-packagekit:
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend [gsettings-backend]  0.12.1-3
ii  dpkg                                         1.16.10
ii  gnome-packagekit                             3.4.2-2
ii  gnome-packagekit-data                        3.4.2-2
ii  gnome-settings-daemon                        3.4.2+git20121218.7c1322-3
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas                    3.4.2-3
ii  libatk1.0-0                                  2.4.0-2
ii  libc6                                        2.13-38
ii  libcairo-gobject2                            1.12.2-3
ii  libcairo2                                    1.12.2-3
ii  libcanberra-gtk3-0                           0.28-6
ii  libcanberra0                                 0.28-6
ii  libcolord1                                   0.1.21-1
ii  libcomerr2                                   1.42.5-1.1
ii  libcups2                                     1.5.3-5
ii  libdbus-1-3                                  1.6.8-1
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2                             0.100.2-1
ii  libfontconfig1                               2.9.0-7.1
ii  libgcrypt11                                  1.5.0-5
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0                           2.26.1-1
ii  libglib2.0-0                                 2.33.12+really2.32.4-5
ii  libgnome-desktop-3-2                         3.4.2-1
ii  libgnomekbd7                                 3.4.0.2-1
ii  libgnutls26                                  2.12.20-7
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2                             1.10.1+dfsg-5+deb7u1
ii  libgtk-3-0                                   3.4.2-6
ii  libgudev-1.0-0                               175-7.2
ii  libk5crypto3                                 1.10.1+dfsg-5+deb7u1
ii  libkrb5-3                                    1.10.1+dfsg-5+deb7u1
ii  liblcms2-2                                   2.2+git20110628-2.2
ii  libnotify4                                   0.7.5-1
ii  libnspr4                                     2:4.9.6-1~bpo60+1
ii  libnspr4-0d                                  2:4.9.6-1~bpo60+1
ii  libnss3                                      2:3.14.3-1
ii  libnss3-1d                                   2:3.14.3-1
ii  libpackagekit-glib2-14                       0.7.6-3
ii  libpango1.0-0                                1.30.0-1
ii  libpolkit-gobject-1-0                        0.105-3
ii  libpulse-mainloop-glib0                      2.0-6.1
ii  libpulse0                                    2.0-6.1
ii  libsqlite3-0                                 3.7.13-1+deb7u1
ii  libupower-glib1                              0.9.17-1
ii  libwacom2                                    0.6-1
ii  libx11-6                                     2:1.5.0-1+deb7u1
ii  libxfixes3                                   1:5.0-4+deb7u1
ii  libxi6                                       2:1.6.1-1+deb7u1
ii  libxklavier16                                5.2.1-1
ii  libxtst6                                     2:1.2.1-1+deb7u1
ii  nautilus-data                                3.4.2-1+build1
ii  packagekit                                   0.7.6-3
ii  zlib1g                                       1:1.2.7.dfsg-13

Versions of packages gnome-settings-daemon recommends:
ii  pulseaudio  2.0-6.1

Versions of packages gnome-settings-daemon suggests:
ii  gnome-screensaver            3.4.1-1
ii  metacity [x-window-manager]  1:2.34.3-4
ii  twm [x-window-manager]       1:1.0.6-1
ii  x11-xserver-utils            7.7~3

-- no debconf information