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#300465 - 11/07/2007 05:54 debian apt problem
andy carpal tunnel Registered: 10/06/1999 Posts: 5914 Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK	I have got a major debian apt problem that has got me stumped. The apt database on one of my sarge debian servers has recently become messed up in such a way that php and a number of other important packages are not installed and cannot be reinstalled. It appears that some packages think that they should be installing etch versions rather than sarge. I did at one point in the distant past add testing to my sources list while trying to install a more recent version of something like hddtemp. My sources file has only stable in it since. This all started when I did an "aptitude update", saw the was a new version of squirrelmail available and did a "aptitude upgrade". It wouldn't upgrade squirrelmail because of held back packages. At some point during this problem I had lots of packages in a held state, I did a "dist-upgrade" to try and clear them as that seemed to be the advice I googled. I then removed some packages including php to try and reinstall them, but that has just made things worse. For example when I try to do "aptitude install php4" I get: E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. E: Unable to correct dependencies, some packages cannot be installed E: Unable to resolve some dependencies! Some packages had unmet dependencies. This may mean that you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution that some required packages have not yet been created or been moved out of Incoming. The following packages have unmet dependencies: php4: Depends: libapache2-mod-php4 (>= 6:4.4.4-8+etch4) but it is not installable or libapache-mod-php4 (>= 6:4.4.4-8+etch4) but it is not installable or php4-cgi (>= 6:4.4.4-8+etch4) but it is not installable and for dovecot I get: The following packages have unmet dependencies: dovecot-common: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.3.5-1) but 2.3.2.ds1-22sarge6 is installed. Depends: libkrb53 (>= 1.4.2) but 1.3.6-2sarge4 is installed and it is kept back. Depends: libpq4 but it is not installable Depends: libssl0.9.8 (>= 0.9.8a-1) which is a virtual package. I also tried various apt-get and aptitude commands to try and purge the package meta data for the problem packages, but that didn't seem to achieve anything. Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this ? I have tried googling, but not come up with anything helpful. I am wondering whether at this stage upgrading the machine to etch might be the way forward ? This sort of problem is exactly the sort of thing that I expect to happen on Windows, not debian Ironically I used (and still use on an old server) rpm for years without anything like this happening. All my apt config files and log files are available here http://www.norman.cx/download/vault/ Thanks _________________________ Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#300466 - 11/07/2007 09:51 Re: debian apt problem [Re: andy]
LittleBlueThing addict Registered: 11/01/2002 Posts: 612 Loc: Reading, UK	Quote: I have got a major debian apt problem that has got me stumped. I'm not an expert but I do use Debian; mainly testing though. Anyway, lets see... Quote: The apt database on one of my sarge debian servers has recently become messed up in such a way that php and a number of other important packages are not installed and cannot be reinstalled. It appears that some packages think that they should be installing etch versions rather than sarge. I did at one point in the distant past add testing to my sources list while trying to install a more recent version of something like hddtemp. My sources file has only stable in it since. If you add testing or similar to your sources then you may want: # cat /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10local APT::Default-Release "stable"; [ah, yes, you've got that] Hmm, now etch is stable I wonder if that should be sarge? Quote: This all started when I did an "aptitude update", saw the was a new version of squirrelmail available and did a "aptitude upgrade". It wouldn't upgrade squirrelmail because of held back packages. IIRC upgrade is basically a request to upgrade all packages in the OS to the latest version. If you had testing in your sources and no 'pinning' (to pin the version to stable) then you may have upgraded to testing... Quote: At some point during this problem I had lots of packages in a held state, I did a "dist-upgrade" to try and clear them as that seemed to be the advice I googled. I'm pretty sure that that will have forced an upgrade. I don't think you're in Kansas^H^H^H^H^HSarge any more Toto Quote: I then removed some packages including php to try and reinstall them, but that has just made things worse. Especially if some packages come from a repository that you've told the packager to forget about... Quote: For example when I try to do "aptitude install php4" I get: [Paraphrased HELP - I'm BROKEN] Quote: I also tried various apt-get and aptitude commands to try and purge the package meta data for the problem packages, but that didn't seem to achieve anything. Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this ? I have tried googling, but not come up with anything helpful. I am wondering whether at this stage upgrading the machine to etch might be the way forward ? I think this is your best bet. If you want to try something first then add: deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian etch main contrib to sources, do an apt-get update Then go into aptitude and try to upgrade squirrel etc. Then press 'b' to find the next broken package. Then hit return to get to the package details. You may then see a more advanced version at the very bottom that you can select and do a 'u' on manually. This overrides the pinning. 'q' to get back to the main list and then keep doing this for all broken packages. Quote: This sort of problem is exactly the sort of thing that I expect to happen on Windows, not debian Ironically I used (and still use on an old server) rpm for years without anything like this happening. I _suspect_ it's because you did things with a mixed repository (testing/stable) and then did some upgrade/dist-upgrade stuff. There is plenty of rope in the Debian world... Quote: All my apt config files and log files are available here http://www.norman.cx/download/vault/ Thanks _________________________ LittleBlueThing Running twin 30's
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#300467 - 11/07/2007 10:15 Re: debian apt problem [Re: LittleBlueThing]
andy carpal tunnel Registered: 10/06/1999 Posts: 5914 Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK	I don't know if it makes any difference, but testing definitely wasn't in my sources file when I did the dist-upgrade and while I did at one point install a single package from testing I uninstalled it soon after and removed the testing line. I don't believe that the testing package installed any dependancies, but I'm not sure ;( _________________________ Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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#300468 - 11/07/2007 12:45 Re: debian apt problem [Re: andy]
LittleBlueThing addict Registered: 11/01/2002 Posts: 612 Loc: Reading, UK	Ok - I misunderstood your first post. I do wonder if the fact that stable=etch is making a difference Try adding etch into the sources and doing an update. Also try updating apt, dpkg, aptitude etc to the latest etch versions. I know they're much better at resolving issues now. I would certainly try that before a dist-upgrade.... _________________________ LittleBlueThing Running twin 30's
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#300469 - 11/07/2007 13:07 Re: debian apt problem [Re: LittleBlueThing]
andy carpal tunnel Registered: 10/06/1999 Posts: 5914 Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK	I've kind of tried the opposite My sources.list file contained one entry to sarge and one to stable. Since etch is now stable I think that is what caused the initial problem. I have changed both to be sarge, done an "update" and a few "upgrades". I now have what looks like a clean apt database again. Something odd has happened with php/apache, looks like I am stuck without the php module enabled, but I expect I can fix that. After reading the many pages of stuff I need to do for a clean sarge-etch upgrade it can wait for now. Thanks _________________________ Remind me to change my signature to something more interesting someday
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