Bug#600571: perl: Fails to complete unpack during installation

[Roger Leigh]

reassign 600571 apt
thanks

On 14/11/2010 20:53, Niko Tyni wrote:
> severity 600571 important
> thanks
>
> On Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 09:35:28AM +0300, Niko Tyni wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 10:33:57AM +0100, Roger Leigh wrote:
>>> Package: perl
>>> Version: 5.10.1-15
>>> Severity: serious
>>> Justification: Breaks installation
>>>
>>> While dist-upgrading my system today, the perl package failed to unpack/configure
>>> (transcript below) and hung for over an hour until I killed the dpkg process.  After
>>> running "dpkg --configure -a" and "apt-get -f install" the package then continued to
>>> configure correctly.  It looks like it was somehow stuck between unpacking and
>>> configuring.  There was no response in the terminal to any keys (I tried hitting enter,
>>> but there was no response to the input, so maybe apt-get was doing something odd with
>>> termios if this wasn't a deliberate action by the perl maintainer scripts).
>
>> This is very weird. No, the maintainer scripts of the perl package
>> certainly don't mess with ptys in any way and actually do nothing at
>> the unpack stage of an upgrade. There are no conffiles and no debconf
>> usage either.
>
>> The package seems to work for other people (10 days in unstable without
>> other reports) and the changes in 5.10.1-15 seem unlikely to cause
>> something like this.
>>
>> My best guess is that this is either a problem with your system or some
>> corner case in apt-get / dpkg interaction but this is all just handwaving.
>>
>> Tagging as unreproducible, let's wait a while for any other reports. The
>> package just migrated to squeeze so there should be plenty of people
>> upgrading in the next few days.
>
> Now that we've seen 5.10.1-16 migrate to squeeze too after ten days in
> unstable and no other reports of anything like this, I think it's clear
> this is not an issue with the perl package.
>
> I'm downgrading the severity so that RC bughunters can concentrate on other
> things. TBH, I don't see much point in keeping the bug open at all.
>
> Roger, please let me know if you're OK with closing this or if you want it
> reassigned somewhere else. Personally I doubt the dpkg or apt maintainers
> can do much about it either.

Yes, it's likely an apt/dpkg issue.  I'll reassign it to apt.


Thanks,
Roger