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How to fix the you have held broken packages error?
These are some fast and easy ways to fix the you have held broken packages error. Open your sources.list file in /etc/apt/sources.list and check that there aren’t any software sources for a different Ubuntu release than the Ubuntu release that you are currently using.
How can I fix a broken package in Ubuntu?
If the broken package was installed from some other source, maybe that package can be removed along with its software source and replaced by a different version of the same package from the default Ubuntu repositories. Usually this means fixing a broken package by downgrading that package to an older version.
How to tell if a package is broken in Apt?
Select the broken packages one at a time. Select a broken package, and then open the terminal and run apt policy . The results of this command will tell you if that broken package was installed from the default Ubuntu repositories or from some other source.
What does it mean when packages can not be installed?
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming.
What to do if some packages have been held back?
If you get a message saying that “some packages have been held back” so you couldn’t successfully complete the earlier command, then you should run sudo apt-get dist-upgrade to install the rest of these packages.
Why do I get broken packages in Apt?
If all of these methods don’t work it is possible that the broken packages are caused by something that is embedded so deeply in the operating system that none of these methods have any effect on it. The first obvious place to look for this deeply embedded “something” is in the software sources in /etc/apt/sources.list.
Where do I find broken packages in synaptic?
In Synaptic in the left pane click the Custom Filters button which is marked by the mouse cursor in the below screenshot. From the list in the top left corner select Broken. In the center pane will be listed any broken packages that still need to be repaired. Select the broken packages one at a time.
How to get a list of held packages?
You can get a list of actual held packages with: If there are none, or none look related, then it’s probably something else. Check carefully the output of the command you were trying when you got the error message, as there may be other clues in the full output from that command, aside from the error message.