Update goes into infinite loop of nothing

[ugr|dual]

PRODUCT, VERSION, MICROUPDATE, OPERATING SYSTEM, ARCHITECTURE
ubuntu 8.04 lts, x64
10.4.4 Update #36

I keep autoupdates off for reasons of stability. I prefer to check manually and watch carefully what is done.

So checking the updates section today, I got greeted by a yellow box message:

"A new version will be downloaded, this page will be updated, if any problems click on this link.."

Link points to same page btw and is useless.

This page keeps reloading in an infinite loop. It seems to spawn some process on the server, but nothing happens.

Also if I go to the update source & proxy page I can not save any changes - button greyed out.
The path to store updates into is empty, but is a required setting. Cause of all this?

Any hints appreciated.

 

[ugr|dual]

Trying to add components brings a red box:

Unknown error occured in backend.

 

[ugr|dual]

problem solved by some commandline actions, killing processes.