#1029941 unattended-upgrades: unattended-upgrade hangs with 100% CPU usage

Package:
unattended-upgrades
Source:
unattended-upgrades
Submitter:
George Shuklin
Date:
2026-08-24 09:25:01 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1029941#5
Date:
2023-01-29 10:07:20 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

I found that unattended-upgrade process consumed more than 37 hours (took me a
while to notice).

In strace there is an endless loop:
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_sid_non-free_binary-
all_Packages.zst", 0x7ffdbcd64c70, 0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_sid_non-free_binary-
all_Packages.uncompressed", 0x7ffdbcd64c70, 0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or
directory)
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_sid_non-
free_i18n_Translation-en", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=624211, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_sid_non-
free_i18n_Translation-en", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=624211, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_main_source_Sources",
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2313105, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_contrib_source_Sources",
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=3188, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_non-
free_source_Sources", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=24493, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_main_binary-
amd64_Packages", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2503499, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_main_binary-
amd64_Packages", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2503499, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_main_binary-i386_Packages",
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2359788, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_main_binary-i386_Packages",
{st_mode=S_IFREG|0644, st_size=2359788, ...}, 0) = 0
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_main_binary-
all_Packages", 0x7ffdbcd64c70, 0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
[pid 633721] newfstatat(AT_FDCWD,
"/var/lib/apt/lists/debian.otenet.gr_debian_dists_experimental_main_binary-
all_Packages.xz", 0x7ffdbcd64c70, 0) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)

There is no specific log entires in the journal (just start event) and this is
the last message in the logs:

2023-01-29 00:08:26,889 INFO Starting unattended upgrades script
2023-01-29 00:08:26,889 INFO Allowed origins are:
origin=Debian,codename=bookworm,label=Debian,
origin=Debian,codename=bookworm,label=Debian-Security,
origin=Debian,codename=bookworm-security,label=Debian-Security
2023-01-29 00:08:26,889 INFO Initial blacklist:
2023-01-29 00:08:26,889 INFO Initial whitelist (not strict):