[Bug 1577192] Re: package gcc-doc 4:4.8.2-1ubuntu6 failed to install/upgrade: there is no script in the new version of the package - giving up

[Andreas Mohr]

I cannot help but yelling: Guys, what the H*LL is up with this bug!?

- I still do hit this problem when upgrading to 16.04LTS (point .4) from 14.04LTS (from 12.04LTS)
- this package state likely is NOT treatable (not without major knowledgeable effort)
- BLOCKER: this package state is said to fully (and persistently!) block updating of the entire system (comment #9)
- this bug (which affects the latest *stable* distro version, i.e. something which one would expect "to be permanently working nevermind what is going on") has been reported a whopping nearly TWO YEARS ago
- I completely do not grasp purpose of the latest comment activities (#13, #14 and additions), especially since in my "normal" end user side use case things currently are NOT fixed
  (possibly Fix Committed means that it's fixed on repo side, to be landing on distribution side - however we're now ONE YEAR after that state transition, too!)

Rant side note: personal decision: shunning Ubuntu now, preferring Debian (after having discovered recently after 14.04LTS upgrade that:
- DHCP lease time handling for a supposedly-very-normal suspend-to-RAM use case *still* is broken as it was in 12.04 - a MAJOR (since larger-environment-corrupting-beyond-local-system) issue!
- keyboard meta keys kernel crash still existing in new kernel version of 14.04 vs. 12.04
)

While this issue seems to be locally workaround-solvable in a sufficiently benign manner by:
editing
/var/lib/dpkg/info/gcc-doc.prerm
to
install-info --quiet --dir-file /usr/share/info/dir --remove /usr/share/info/gcc.info.gz
install-info --quiet --dir-file /usr/share/info/dir --remove /usr/share/info/gccint.info.gz
(from
install-info --quiet --remove gcc
install-info --quiet --remove gccint
)
and then doing
apt-get install --reinstall gcc-doc
, this is a thoroughly complex manual fix which is as distant as imaginable from an { automatically usability-preserving | easily after-the-fact-doable | semi-easily after-the-fact-doable } installation activity.

Again: BLOCKER.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1577192

Title:
  package gcc-doc 4:4.8.2-1ubuntu6 failed to install/upgrade: there is
  no script in the new version of the package - giving up

Status in gcc-defaults package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Committed

Bug description:
  Tried to update from 14.04 to 16.04 and a lot more than this failed to
  install.

  ProblemType: Package
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
  Package: gcc-doc 4:4.8.2-1ubuntu6
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-21.37-generic 4.4.6
  Uname: Linux 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Sun May  1 10:33:35 2016
  ErrorMessage: there is no script in the new version of the package - giving up
  InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-12-23 (1225 days ago)
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
  RelatedPackageVersions:
   dpkg 1.18.4ubuntu1
   apt  1.2.10ubuntu1
  SourcePackage: gcc-defaults
  Title: package gcc-doc 4:4.8.2-1ubuntu6 failed to install/upgrade: there is no script in the new version of the package - giving up
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-05-01 (0 days ago)

  Attempted to uninstall the package: gcc-doc
  Resulted in the following error:
  dpkg: error processing package gcc-doc (--purge):
   package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should
   reinstall it before attempting a removal
  Errors were encountered while processing:
   gcc-doc
  E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
  A package failed to install.  Trying to recover:

  Package also can not be de-selected in the update manager.

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