[Aptitude-devel] Bug#841506: aptitude: cannot reinstall package available as update

[Jonas Smedegaard]

Quoting Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo (2017-03-07 22:43:39)
> 2017-03-07 0:53 GMT+01:00 Jonas Smedegaard <dr at jones.dk>:
> > Quoting Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo (2017-03-06 22:33:18)
> >> 2016-10-21 11:22 Jonas Smedegaard:
> >> >Package: aptitude
> >> >Version: 0.8.3-1+b1
> >> >Severity: important
> >> >
> >> >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> >> >Hash: SHA256
> >> >
> >> >Aptitude has thrown me into limbo (hence severity important):
> >> >
> >> >A kernel update failed (ran out of space in /boot, and/or bugs in kernel
> >> >hooks for sicherboot), flagging it as needing a reinstall.
> >> >
> >> >Choosing "L" to reinstall and then "G", is refused with (in danish, on
> >> >my system) a message saying that no packages will be installed, removed
> >> >or upgraded, some packages could be upgraded, and I should press "U" to
> >> >do that.
> >> >
> >> >Seems that check is missing the option of reinstall in its logic.
> >>
> >> I think that the problem might be that it cannot use the same version of
> >> the package to download, if it's not available in the list of packages,
> >> so it cannot do nothing, other than suggesting to upgrade.
> >
> > Not sure I follow what you are saying above.  Seems you are saying that
> > you suspect that pressing "L" cannot work.  I have reinstalled packages
> > before in that way.
> 
> Oh, my bad.  I thought that the package had become upgradable at some
> point, so aptitude cannot download the package from the server
> anymore, thus you cannot reinstall the same version (only the upgraded
> one).  It's a relatively common case that causes problem with
> reinstall operations.
> 
> I have never seen aptitude to prevent the user from reinstalling,
> neither with versions of aptitude from stable nor the ones in
> unstable.  So unless it was caused by its broken state, I have no idea
> where that comes from.
> 
> Under normal conditions, one can reinstall a single package ("l" +
> "g") at any time, no problem -- it doesn't prevent to Go ahead just
> because reinstall is not a supported operation.  Does this work for
> you right now, I hope?

It works to reinstall packages, yes.  This bug is not that reinstall 
stopped generally working, but that it refused to work for that specific 
package being in limbo, where aptitude (or dpkg bubbling through?) 
explicitly instructed to _reinstall_.


> >> Do you remember if it allowed you to fix the system by using "+"
> >> (install or upgrade) instead?
> >
> > No, I did not try to use "+": Aptitude explicitly told that it needed
> > _reinstall_ and it worked to _request_ a reinstall but then failed to
> > _execute_ the request. Frankly didn't occur to me to try trick aptitude
> > by requesting an _update_ for a package with no newer version available
> > but in broken state.
> 
> Nevermind.  This has to do with my wrong interpretation.  When the
> package to be reinstalled has been upgraded in the server, one should
> upgrade, reinstall never works.

I realize that your misunderstanding me quite likely stems from my bad 
phrasing of the subject of this bugreport: Kernel package had failed to 
install _moments_ before trying to reinstall - not long time befor - so 
situation was _not_ that the package no longer was available for 
re-download (I am aware that "l" does a fresh download of the current 
version of the package and therefore need that version to be available).

 - Jonas

-- 
 * Jonas Smedegaard - idealist & Internet-arkitekt
 * Tlf.: +45 40843136  Website: http://dr.jones.dk/

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