[Bug 1960582] Re: [critical] dpkg error while processing - can't install nor upgrade

[Gene Weber]

I ran into this same problem when doing a release upgrade on an AWS EC2
instance. I have not been able to fix a broken upgrade, but here is how
to do a successful upgrade.

An "ls" on a brand new EC2 instance running 20.04.1 shows this:

$ ls -lat /var/lib/dpkg
total 1752
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:19 updates
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:19 .
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 706338 Sep  1 09:19 status
-rw-r-----  1 root root      0 Sep  1 09:19 lock
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 706377 Sep  1 09:19 status-old
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 143360 Sep  1 09:19 info
drwxr-xr-x 47 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:19 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:19 triggers
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    135 Sep  1 09:19 statoverride
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:19 alternatives
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    268 Nov 29  2021 diversions
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    336 Nov 29  2021 diversions-old
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    100 Nov 29  2021 statoverride-old
-rw-r-----  1 root root      0 Nov 29  2021 lock-frontend
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 181566 Nov 29  2021 available
-rw-r--r--  1 root root      8 Nov 29  2021 cmethopt
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 Mar 23  2020 parts

Trying to run a "do-release-upgrade" will not work if any 20.04.01
packages need to be upgraded. If "sudo apt upgrade" is run, "ls" now
shows this:

$ ls -lat /var/lib/dpkg
total 1752
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:23 .
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root     13 Sep  1 09:23 dpkg -> /var/lib/dpkg
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:21 updates
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 707850 Sep  1 09:21 status
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root 143360 Sep  1 09:21 info
-rw-r-----  1 root root      0 Sep  1 09:21 lock
-rw-r-----  1 root root      0 Sep  1 09:21 lock-frontend
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 707587 Sep  1 09:21 status-old
drwxr-xr-x 47 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:19 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:19 triggers
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    135 Sep  1 09:19 statoverride
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 Sep  1 09:19 alternatives
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    268 Nov 29  2021 diversions
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    336 Nov 29  2021 diversions-old
-rw-r--r--  1 root root    100 Nov 29  2021 statoverride-old
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 181566 Nov 29  2021 available
-rw-r--r--  1 root root      8 Nov 29  2021 cmethopt
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root   4096 Mar 23  2020 parts

Proceeding with "do-release-upgrade" at this point breaks. But if I
"sudo unlink /var/lib/dpkg/dpkg" before doing the "do-release-upgrade",
the upgrade to 22.04 is successful.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1960582

Title:
  [critical] dpkg error while processing - can't install nor upgrade

Status in dpkg package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  My current ubuntu version : 
  No LSB modules are available.
  Distributor ID:	Ubuntu
  Description:	Ubuntu Jammy Jellyfish (development branch)
  Release:	22.04
  Codename:	jammy

  Issue : 
  when `sudo apt update` is ok, all newest package is downloaded
  but `sudo apt ugprade` show current error : ]

  sudo apt upgrade
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree... Done
  Reading state information... Done
  Calculating upgrade... Done
  The following packages have been kept back:
    librygel-renderer-2.6-2 librygel-server-2.6-2 rygel
  The following packages will be upgraded:
    bolt code deja-dup enchant-2 fwupd gdm3 gir1.2-gdm-1.0 gir1.2-gst-plugins-base-1.0 gir1.2-nm-1.0 gir1.2-nma-1.0
    gir1.2-upowerglib-1.0 gjs gstreamer1.0-alsa gstreamer1.0-gl gstreamer1.0-gtk3 gstreamer1.0-plugins-base
    gstreamer1.0-plugins-base-apps gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-pulseaudio gstreamer1.0-x initramfs-tools
    initramfs-tools-bin initramfs-tools-core iputils-ping iputils-tracepath language-pack-en language-pack-gnome-en
    libenchant-2-2 libfwupd2 libfwupdplugin5 libgdm1 libgjs0g libgstreamer-gl1.0-0 libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0
    libgstreamer-plugins-good1.0-0 libnl-3-200 libnl-genl-3-200 libnl-route-3-200 libnm0 libnma-common libnma0
    libpkcs11-helper1 libseccomp2 libunistring2 libunistring2:i386 libupower-glib3 media-types nano network-manager
    network-manager-config-connectivity-ubuntu python3-paramiko python3-software-properties simple-scan
    software-properties-common software-properties-gtk upower
  56 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
  10 not fully installed or removed.
  Need to get 0 B/94,6 MB of archives.
  After this operation, 1.928 kB of additional disk space will be used.
  Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
  Extracting templates from packages: 100%
  Preconfiguring packages ...
  Setting up dpkg (1.21.1ubuntu1) ...
  head: error reading 'dpkg': Is a directory
  dpkg: error processing package dpkg (--configure):
   installed dpkg package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
  Errors were encountered while processing:
   dpkg
  E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

  i have to resintall all of the package in cache with `sudo dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb
  `, but the cache sometimes is not the newest packages 
  and when i rerun `sudo apt upgrade`, there is still not the newest package

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