[Bug 970139] Re: apt_check.py crashed with SIGSEGV in pkgPolicy::GetCandidateVer()

[R (Chandra) Chandrasekhar]

I have experienced this bug and it has resulted in the following
consequences on my Kubuntu 12.04 amd64 system:

1. Inability to update or upgrade with

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

See example below for error message.

2. Error when trying to install or reinstall any existing package. For
instance

sudo apt-get install --reinstall update-notifier-common

gives

---
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/222 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Use of uninitialized value $item in hash element at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 82, <$__ANONIO__> chunk 29.
(Reading database ... 65%dpkg: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
 files list file for package 'libhal1' is missing final newline
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
---

For the record, I was told during some upgrade that libhal1 was not
needed and could be removed by

sudo apt-get autoremove

and the above error must have resulted from that operation.

3. The system runs but is flaky.

4. I have a new system disk that is less than three months old and is
unlikely to be the cause of the above problems.

5. It appears that I need to re-install my system (sigh).

If there is any workaround, I will appreciate knowing about it.

Thank.s

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/970139

Title:
  apt_check.py crashed with SIGSEGV in pkgPolicy::GetCandidateVer()

Status in “update-notifier” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Ubuntu 12.04 Beta2

  ProblemType: Crash
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
  Package: update-notifier-common 0.119ubuntu1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-21.34-generic 3.2.13
  Uname: Linux 3.2.0-21-generic i686
  ApportVersion: 2.0-0ubuntu2
  Architecture: i386
  CheckboxSubmission: 592d2a6e0d18bcb44c8ff4a0517b9d98
  CheckboxSystem: 4029317434a5f787a60302f0f64e8786
  Date: Sat Mar 31 17:48:18 2012
  ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt_check.py
  InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.7
  PackageArchitecture: all
  ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check
  ProcEnviron:
   LANGUAGE=fr_FR:fr:en
   PATH=(custom, user)
   LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
   SHELL=/bin/bash
  SegvReason: writing unknown VMA
  Signal: 11
  SourcePackage: update-notifier
  Title: apt_check.py crashed with SIGSEGV in pkgPolicy::GetCandidateVer()
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
  UserGroups: adm admin audio cdrom dialout dip fax floppy fuse lp lpadmin mythtv netdev plugdev root scanner tape video
  mtime.conffile..etc.apt.apt.conf.d.10periodic: 2011-10-13T19:54:59

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