[Aptitude-devel] Bug#874015: aptitude: forgets selection state for package downgrade

[Yann Dirson]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.8.7-1
Severity: normal

Let's choose a package tha is a candidate for upgrade (previous testing
version is installed, and more recent than current stable version).

If I select it for upgrade to testing and quit aptitude, the selected
version is still selected when I launch aptitude again.

Now if I select it for downgrade and quit, then on next launch
not only the downgrading choice is lost, but the package is now selected
for *upgrade*.

Combine this with a bug like #874012, where for some reason it seems to reset
selections as if user had quit and relaunched, and a time-consuming
selection of packages while attempting to restore a broken situation
just gets frustratingly lost.

-- Package-specific info:
Terminal: screen
$DISPLAY is set.
which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude

aptitude version information:
aptitude 0.8.7
Compiler: g++ 6.3.0 20170406
Compiled against:
  apt version 5.0.1
  NCurses version 6.0
  libsigc++ version: 2.10.0
  Gtk+ support disabled.
  Qt support disabled.

Current library versions:
  NCurses version: ncurses 6.0.20161126
  cwidget version: 0.5.17
  Apt version: 5.0.1

aptitude linkage:
	linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff74bd9000)
	libapt-pkg.so.5.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.5.0 (0x00007f5ba304c000)
	libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007f5ba2e1c000)
	libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007f5ba2bf2000)
	libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007f5ba29eb000)
	libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007f5ba26f0000)
	libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007f5ba23e3000)
	libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 (0x00007f5ba21cb000)
	libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 (0x00007f5ba1fb2000)
	libboost_system.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.62.0 (0x00007f5ba1dae000)
	libxapian.so.30 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxapian.so.30 (0x00007f5ba199a000)
	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f5ba177d000)
	libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f5ba13fa000)
	libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f5ba10f6000)
	libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f5ba0edf000)
	libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f5ba0b40000)
	libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f5ba093c000)
	libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007f5ba0725000)
	libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f5ba0509000)
	libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007f5ba02f9000)
	liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007f5ba00d3000)
	liblz4.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblz4.so.1 (0x00007f5b9fec1000)
	librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f5b9fcb9000)
	libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007f5b9fab2000)
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x000055b6671f1000)

-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (1990, 'stable'), (900, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'oldstable'), (101, 'experimental'), (1, 'experimental-debug')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=C (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages aptitude depends on:
ii  aptitude-common            0.8.7-1
ii  libapt-pkg5.0              1.4.7
ii  libboost-filesystem1.62.0  1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libboost-iostreams1.62.0   1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libboost-system1.62.0      1.62.0+dfsg-4
ii  libc6                      2.24-11+deb9u1
ii  libcwidget3v5              0.5.17-6
ii  libgcc1                    1:7.1.0-10
ii  libncursesw5               6.0+20161126-1
ii  libsigc++-2.0-0v5          2.10.0-1
ii  libsqlite3-0               3.19.3-3
ii  libstdc++6                 7.1.0-10
ii  libtinfo5                  6.0+20161126-1
ii  libxapian30                1.4.4-2

Versions of packages aptitude recommends:
ii  libparse-debianchangelog-perl  1.2.0-12
ii  sensible-utils                 0.0.9

Versions of packages aptitude suggests:
ii  apt-xapian-index                0.49
pn  aptitude-doc-en | aptitude-doc  <none>
ii  debtags                         2.1.2
ii  tasksel                         3.39

-- no debconf information