Can't remove any existing lock

Question

I was trying to install Git with this command:

sudo apt-get install git

Then I get this error:

E: Could not get lock /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)

E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), is another process using it?

I read somewhere that this commamd is to be used to remove any lock

sudo fuser -cuk /var/lib/dpkg/lock; sudo rm -f /var/lib/dpkg/lock

But upon entering this command my PC just goes blank... Nothing happens.

and i am running on ubuntu 12.0.4 LTS (PRECISE PANGOLIN)

Answer 1

I see pretty much all the answers recommend deleting the lock. I don't recommend doing that as a first measure; maybe if there is no alternative. The lock is placed when an apt process is running, and is removed when the process completes. If there is a lock with no apparent process running, this may mean the process got stuck for some reason.

If you try

ps aux | grep apt

that will catch processes containing the word apt, at least. If you see an apt-get process or an aptitude process that looks stuck, you can try

kill processnumber

and if that doesn't work try

kill -9 processnumber

This should kill the process and may remove the lock. Killing an apt or aptitude process is harmless unless it is actually in the middle of package installation. In any case, if the process got stuck, you probably don't have a choice but to kill it.

Answer 2

I was having this problem while running shell scripts with vagrant. I found that a simple sleep 10 was sufficient to remove the lock. Thought I'd share in case it helps anyone.