如果出现此错误信息则表明出了什么问题后 apt-get软件包下载和安装已经完成？
...
Processing triggers for menu ...
Error: Timeout was reached
这是在 Debian Wheezy/Sid 上进行的。
答案1
我遇到了和你同样的问题：
$ sudo apt-get --reinstall install intel-microcode
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
linux-image-686-pae
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove it.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 14 not upgraded.
Need to get 426 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid/non-free intel-microcode i386 1.20130222.5 [426 kB]
Fetched 426 kB in 11s (36.8 kB/s)
(Reading database ... 283637 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace intel-microcode 1.20130222.5 (using .../intel-microcode_1.20130222.5_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement intel-microcode ...
Setting up intel-microcode (1.20130222.5) ...
Updating microcode on all online processors...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.9-1-686-pae
Error: Timeout was reached
$
然后我就在想，这initramfs与它有什么关系，我从dpkg.log文件中得到了提示。
2013-07-13 13:54:57 启动档案解压 2013-07-13 13:55:09 升级英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:09 状态半配置英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:09 状态解压英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:09 状态半安装英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:10 状态半安装英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:10 状态解压英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:10 状态解压英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:11 启动包配置 2013-07-13 13:55:11 配置英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:11 状态解压英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:11 状态解压英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:11 状态解压英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:12 状态半配置英特尔微码：i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:12 状态已安装 intel-microcode:i386 1.20130222.5 2013-07-13 13:55:12 状态触发器待处理 initramfs 工具：全部 0.113 2013-07-13 13:55:12 trigproc initramfs 工具：全部 0.113 2013-07-13 13:55:12 状态半配置 initramfs-tools:all 0.113 2013-07-13 13:55:44 状态已安装 initramfs-tools:all 0.113
因此我继续重新安装该initramfs-tools包apt-get --reinstall install initramfs-tools，现在该消息不再起作用了。
$ sudo apt-get --reinstall install intel-microcode
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
linux-image-686-pae
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove it.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 14 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/426 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 283637 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace intel-microcode 1.20130222.5 (using .../intel-microcode_1.20130222.5_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement intel-microcode ...
Setting up intel-microcode (1.20130222.5) ...
Updating microcode on all online processors...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.9-1-686-pae
$
我不知道具体原因（也不知道如何重现），谷歌搜索也没有帮助，但我在这里留下了一个可能的解决方案。但如果我不得不大胆猜测的话，也许超时是由于触发因素时间到因为对于两者而言，它都是在使用了一些触发器之后发生的（menu就 OP 而言，update-initramfs就我而言）。
答案2
在 Ubuntu 上遇到了同样的问题。查看了以下解决方案：
https://fanf42.blogspot.com/2014/08/upgrading-to-ubuntu-1404-error-timeout.html
sudo /usr/lib/packagekit/packagekitd --verbose
命令向我显示了这个错误：
未找到单元 polkit.service
policykit-1重新安装包（ ）后sudo apt reinstall policykit-1错误消失。
答案3
运行以下命令对我有用：
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update