Describe the bug
The Update Manager (mintupdate) hangs indefinitely during the installation of the libpam-cap package. The background process pk-debconf-helper triggers a 100% CPU spike on a single core (C3 in my case). No interactive debconf dialog is presented to the user, causing a permanent hang of the GUI progress bar.
To Reproduce
-
Launch Update Manager on Linux Mint 22.
-
Select updates including libpam-cap.
-
Start the update.
-
The process stalls at "Preparing configuration for libpam-cap" (Preparazione dell'installazione di libpam-cap).
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Observe pk-debconf-helper consuming 100% CPU in terminal/btop.
Expected behavior
The Update Manager should display the required debconf interactive prompts (like the one for libpam-cap capabilities) or handle the configuration without deadlocking the CPU core.
Distribution
[x] Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3 Zena
Software version
7.1.4
Logs
Plaintext:
2026-04-22 00:38:28 status half-installed libpam-cap:amd64 1:2.66-5ubuntu2.2
2026-04-22 00:38:30 status installed libpam-cap:amd64 1:2.66-5ubuntu2.4
Crash report
The application doesn't crash but becomes unresponsive. Manually killing the pk-debconf-helper process allows the update to proceed or be recovered via terminal using sudo dpkg --configure -a.
Additional context
The issue occurred on an iMac 2011 (i5-2400S). The system is Linux Mint 22. The deadlock seems to happen when a package requires an interactive configuration that the GUI fails to "pop up" to the user.
Locale
Plaintext:
LANG=it_IT.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=it
LC_CTYPE="it_IT.UTF-8"
Kernel version
6.17.0-22-generic
Describe the bug
The Update Manager (mintupdate) hangs indefinitely during the installation of the libpam-cap package. The background process pk-debconf-helper triggers a 100% CPU spike on a single core (C3 in my case). No interactive debconf dialog is presented to the user, causing a permanent hang of the GUI progress bar.
To Reproduce
Launch Update Manager on Linux Mint 22.
Select updates including libpam-cap.
Start the update.
The process stalls at "Preparing configuration for libpam-cap" (Preparazione dell'installazione di libpam-cap).
Observe pk-debconf-helper consuming 100% CPU in terminal/btop.
Expected behavior
The Update Manager should display the required debconf interactive prompts (like the one for libpam-cap capabilities) or handle the configuration without deadlocking the CPU core.
Distribution
[x] Linux Mint Cinnamon 22.3 Zena
Software version
7.1.4
Logs
Plaintext:
2026-04-22 00:38:28 status half-installed libpam-cap:amd64 1:2.66-5ubuntu2.2
2026-04-22 00:38:30 status installed libpam-cap:amd64 1:2.66-5ubuntu2.4
Crash report
The application doesn't crash but becomes unresponsive. Manually killing the pk-debconf-helper process allows the update to proceed or be recovered via terminal using sudo dpkg --configure -a.
Additional context
The issue occurred on an iMac 2011 (i5-2400S). The system is Linux Mint 22. The deadlock seems to happen when a package requires an interactive configuration that the GUI fails to "pop up" to the user.
Locale
Plaintext:
LANG=it_IT.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=it
LC_CTYPE="it_IT.UTF-8"
Kernel version
6.17.0-22-generic