Just ran into this problem on a Ubuntu 16.04.2 server, the check-new- release process occupied the whole disk, causing 99+% iowait in top and 100+MiB/s disk read in iotop (normal HDD, not SSD), which almost freeze the server.
kernel 4.4.0-33-generic 11:48:21 up 209 days, 16:33, 2 users, load average: 0.01, 0.77, 0.68 total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 990 790 65 30 134 34 Swap: 495 495 0 After killed the check-new-release process, the server recovered from freezing. -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1219786 Title: Frantic disk activity by check-new-release makes system temporarily almost unusable To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+bug/1219786/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs