sudo dpkg --configure -a not resolving blocking of synaptic & updating

[m654321]

Try:

Code:

sudo rm -rf /var/lib/dpkg/updates/*
sudo rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get update

then:

Code:

sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq 4.4.0-42-generic

Code:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Reboot.

If any of the above commands don't complete, continue to the next command regardless.

Many thanks Jerry, and many thanks for your message re. Teamviewer but unfortunately I missed this as was away from PC.

I tried what you suggested above to the letter, but it failed, as the previous advice given by firenice, torreydale & jocklad. So rather than waste any more time on this I merely reinstalled LL3.0, using the existing '/home' partition as part of the refreshed setup - only took me an hour max - quicker than trying to find any other solution. Problem sorted. I think the problem may have originally arisen from me forgetting to use 'sudo update-grub' following a kernel update - maybe this explains why I had two older unused kernels still around within the system - just guessing here.

Worth noting (new observation for me), that though '/home' did preserve the browser bookmarks for firefox, slimjet & qupzilla browsers, I did need to reinstall the software that didn't come preinstalled with the fresh install of LL3.0, e.g. slimjet, qupzilla, clementine & others. Also the configuration files in '/home' did not appear to preserve the symlinks between the OS-drive and the data-storage-drive on my PC (setup1 in sig) - the symlinks for the folders Documents, Downloads, etc were shown as 'whited-out' folders with 'double arrows'. I deleted these in '/home' and simply reinstalled them - didn't take long.

Many thanks Jerry & all the team for your continued support & the great job you do generally.
Much appreciated

Regards
Mike