update notifier doesn't list how many packages needs updating

If you get a tooltip, it will show you how many packages need updating.
Not getting the tooltip is the real problem here. ;-)

Could you improve this bug report, e.g. add Ubuntu version, update-notifier-kde version, etc.
Because last time I checked it did work on my Intrepid install...

Well, the issue doesn't occur all the time. Only some times.
But, whatever.
Obviously, this bug is regarding Kubuntu 8.10.
update-notifier-kde is at 0.7

I started noticing this at 0.7 as well. It did work in earlier versions. I believe it may be related to some additions in 0.7.

I'll investigate further, assuming someone else hasn't already started a fix.

Actually, version 0.6 was when I noticed it happening (not 0.7).

Yeah, I think that's when it started happening. I noticed it one or two times back then but assumed the error was transient. It's actually happening all the time for me.

Digging a little further, it appears that it does work as expected if you restart update-notifier-kde and there are pending updates available.

It only appears to fail if there are updates discovered after update-notifier-kde is already up and running. This should help narrow down the problem location.

Further debugging reveals that as you do a adept update on the sources, the tooltip works and then is overridden again. The offending line is 125. See below code snippit:

   def aptDirectoryChanged(self, path=None):
        """ check for updates, if there are any show the tray icon """
        metaRelease = MetaReleaseCore()
        while metaRelease.downloading:
            time.sleep(1)
        self.new_dist = metaRelease.new_dist
        self.trayToolTip = ""

The self.trayToolTip = "" resets the tooltip to empty again after it properly displays the tooltip on the first detection. I suspect that this should go into some if/then check or be pulled into the init method. Will need some testing.

Fixed in 0.9

This bug was fixed in the package update-notifier-kde - 0.9

---------------
update-notifier-kde (0.9) intrepid; urgency=low

  * Patch from R Greening, do not wipe contents of tooltip, closes LP: #282676

 -- Jonathan Riddell <email address hidden> Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:21:49 +0100