Ubuntu Software doesn't open in Ubuntu 20.04

If i click on Ubuntu Software, it doesn't open. I have a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04. I tried try to upgrade all packages, but it doesn't fix this problem.

If I try to run killall software-center there is no process with this name, and software-center returns command not found. If I try to reinstall it with apt I have these results:

$ sudo apt-get --purge --reinstall install software-center
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package oracle-java8-installer is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source
E: Package 'software-center' has no installation candidate

9 Answers

The Ubuntu Software Center (software-center) has been upgraded to GNOME Software (gnome-software) in Ubuntu 16.04 and later. The software app has also been renamed to Software in Ubuntu 20.04 and later.

If the Software app doesn't open run the following commands:

sudo apt clean # clean list of cached packages so Ubuntu Software can read themsudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt autoremove gnome-software && sudo apt install gnome-software

What is that doesn't work?

Is that gnome-software (see icon below)

(If you hover your mouse over this on your dock/taskbar you get the tooltop Software. I didn't have this one docked to my taskbar on a fresh Ubuntu 20 installation.)

or snap-store? (see icon below)

(the tooltip for this is Ubuntu Software).

To find out more information about why either of the 2 is failing, try to open them from a terminal:

Open a terminal (Ctrl + Alt + t, or windowsKeyand then search forterminal, or click on show applicationson your dock/taskbar and then search forterminal`)
Run them: gnome-software. Or snap-store.

Then, google again with the new information that you got.

A couple of ideas:

If if gnome-software is the one that doesn't work, you may try to follow karel instructions:

sudo apt clean # clean list of cached packages so Ubuntu Software can read them
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt autoremove gnome-software && sudo apt install gnome-software

If snap-store is the one that is not working, I can tell you what was my problem (maybe you have a similar one). When I tried to run it I got a permission denied error:
```
[...] WARNING: cannot create user data directory:
cannot create "/home/<username>/snap/snap-store/454":
mkdir /home/<username>/snap/snap-store: permission denied
```

this was happening because when I installed a fresh Ubuntu 20, I copied data from a backup of my previous system (CentOS), which had a snap directory inside my user's home directory. During the copying process, that directory got copied as owned by the root user.

(You can check the permissions, the user owner and the group of that directory with ls -al ~ | grep snap and similarly for what's inside with ls -al ~/snap)

To solve this I just changed the owner of my snap directory (and everything that was inside) with

sudo chown <myuser>:<mygroup> -R ~/snap

(replace <myuser> and <mygroup> with whatever are your user and group. E.g. bob:bob (or use the environment variable $USER). Use the ones that appear for almost everything you have inside your home, when running ls -al ~. Or check your user and its groups by running id).

After that I was able to run snap-store.

You can also try

sudo snap remove snap-store
sudo snap install snap-store

Remember it will ask for a password with pop-up

Try reinstalling it by using the below command, it worked for me after installing Ubuntu 20.04 today.

sudo apt-get --purge --reinstall install gnome-software

One more thing, I noticed that the 'Ubuntu Software' in my Dock was not working (it hangs). Even if I search for it under Application it hangs, I had to select 'Software' which has the same exact icon, that one works fine. Make sure you close Ubuntu Software before you run the command.

Let me know if that works for you. Good luck!

If you are referring to snap-store (the Ubuntu Software application), then I was getting the app failing silently on a brand new 20.04 install.

Typing "snap refresh snap-store" from the command line installed an updated version 467 (was previously 433) and everything worked after that.

Try using these commands in the terminal. It worked for me!

sudo apparmor_parser -r /etc/apparmor.d/*snap-confine*
sudo apparmor_parser -r /var/lib/snapd/apparmor/profiles/snap-confine*
sudo apparmor_parser -r /var/lib/snapd/apparmor/profiles/*

Open terminal and:

gnome-software

This worked for me at least on "Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS".

I had the same problem with snap-store so I installed gnome-software: