Gnome Software Center Not Loading

After installing Ubuntu 16.04, the Gnome Software Center was working. I then started to have issues with it freezing. I decided to uninstall it through the terminal, and then reinstall it through the terminal. If I try to open the software through Unity, the icon opens, but after a time disappears. If I type in gnome-software in the terminal, the command just hangs until I kill it. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling using various commands I've found on this forum and others, but nothing will successfully reinstall the software. All other software seems to be working fine.

Can anyone help? Thank you.

Solution 1:

There is more than one Software "Center". I'm seeing that some people have problems with certain ones. Since you say Gnome Software Center isn't working for you, then you can install ubuntu-software-center. You can do this by running these commands from the terminal.

(Please note, the $ symbol is the terminal prompt. The command is what following the prompt.)

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-software

You can decide which one will be your default by right clicking on a *.deb package and choosing the one that works best. Then click on Set as Default.

Note: ubuntu-software and gnome-software are the same on Ubuntu 16.04. ubuntu-software is a symbolic link to gnome-software. If one is broken it's unlikely the other will work.

The system updates above may resolve the issue. If they don't, install an alternate software installer:

$ sudo apt-get install software-center

Perform these steps to fix gnome-software/ubuntu-software

Rename or remove the ~/.local/share/gnome-software. In the steps below it's removed and will be recreated when you start gnome-software. It currently has a list of what has been installed.

The first line will ensure the locked up instances are removed from memory. It might not be necessary.

$ killall gnome-software
$ rm -r ~/.local/share/gnome-software

Now run ubuntu-software or gnome-software from the Unity Launch Button.