[Piuparts-devel] The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened?

[Nicolas Dandrimont]

On Thu, Mar 19, 2020, at 07:09, wferi at niif.hu wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> https://piuparts.debian.org/sid-strict/fail/libgphoto2-dev-doc_2.5.24-1.log
> ends with the following error:
> 
> ERROR: Command failed (status=100): ['chroot', 
> '/srv/piuparts.debian.org/tmp/tmpxn0254i2', 'apt-get', '-y', 
> '--allow-downgrades', 'install', './tmp/piuparts-depends-dummy.deb']
>   Reading package lists...
>   E: Problem parsing dependency 21 of 
> piuparts-depends-dummy:all=0.invalid.0
>   E: Error occurred while processing piuparts-depends-dummy 
> (NewVersion2)
>   E: Problem with MergeList /tmp/piuparts-depends-dummy.deb
>   E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
> 
> It doesn't look like a problem with the tested package (libgphoto2) to
> me, but I'm not familiar with piuparts.  Could you please help me
> understand this error, and retest the package if appropriate?

Hi!

This was indeed a bug in piuparts (or in apt), rather than in your package: apt 2.0.0 is failing to install the dummy .debs generated by piuparts to install dependencies, because it cannot parse the Depends line generated. Switching Depends and Description around makes the generated package installable.

I've committed a workaround to piuparts and I've rescheduled tests for the few hundred affected packages.

I'll follow up with a bug report (with a reproducer) against apt later.

Cheers,
-- 
Nicolas Dandrimont