Bug#1099470: colord: upgrade to colord 1.4.7-3 fails: The user `colord' already exists, but is not a system user.

[Vincent Lefevre]

On 2025-03-03 22:42:28 +0100, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> When upgrading colord with aptitude:
> 
> Setting up colord (1.4.7-3) ...
> warn: The home dir /var/lib/colord you specified already exists.
> 
> fatal: The user `colord' already exists, but is not a system user. Exiting.
> dpkg: error processing package colord (--configure):
>  installed colord package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 13
> [...]
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  colord
> [...]
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
> Setting up colord (1.4.7-3) ...
> warn: The home dir /var/lib/colord you specified already exists.
> 
> fatal: The user `colord' already exists, but is not a system user. Exiting.
> dpkg: error processing package colord (--configure):
>  installed colord package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 13
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  colord

I suspect that this comes from adduser in the postinst script:

        adduser --system --group --home /var/lib/colord \
            --quiet --gecos "colord colour management daemon" colord

So the following may be important: there was also an upgrade of
adduser, but it was apparently completed. Here are the full logs
in the terminal up to the error:

(Reading database ... 738832 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../archives/adduser_3.143_all.deb ...
Unpacking adduser (3.143) over (3.142) ...
Setting up adduser (3.143) ...
(Reading database ... 738837 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../00-colord-data_1.4.7-3_all.deb ...
Unpacking colord-data (1.4.7-3) over (1.4.7-2) ...
Preparing to unpack .../01-libcolord2_1.4.7-3_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libcolord2:amd64 (1.4.7-3) over (1.4.7-2) ...
Preparing to unpack .../02-libcolorhug2_1.4.7-3_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libcolorhug2:amd64 (1.4.7-3) over (1.4.7-2) ...
Preparing to unpack .../03-colord_1.4.7-3_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking colord (1.4.7-3) over (1.4.7-2) ...
Preparing to unpack .../04-libabsl20230802_20230802.1-4.2_i386.deb ...
De-configuring libabsl20230802:amd64 (20230802.1-4), to allow configuration of libabsl20230802:i386 (20230802.1-4.2) ...
Unpacking libabsl20230802:i386 (20230802.1-4.2) over (20230802.1-4) ...
Preparing to unpack .../05-libabsl20230802_20230802.1-4.2_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libabsl20230802:amd64 (20230802.1-4.2) over (20230802.1-4) ...
Preparing to unpack .../06-libbcprov-java_1.80-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking libbcprov-java (1.80-1) over (1.77-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../07-libbcutil-java_1.80-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking libbcutil-java (1.80-1) over (1.77-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../08-libbcpkix-java_1.80-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking libbcpkix-java (1.80-1) over (1.77-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../09-libbcmail-java_1.80-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking libbcmail-java (1.80-1) over (1.77-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../10-liblouis-data_3.33.0-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking liblouis-data (3.33.0-1) over (3.32.0-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../11-liblouis20_3.33.0-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking liblouis20:amd64 (3.33.0-1) over (3.32.0-1) ...
Preparing to unpack .../12-libobject-pad-perl_0.820-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libobject-pad-perl (0.820-1) over (0.819-1) ...
Setting up libbcprov-java (1.80-1) ...
Setting up libbcutil-java (1.80-1) ...
Setting up libcolord2:amd64 (1.4.7-3) ...
Setting up colord-data (1.4.7-3) ...
Setting up libobject-pad-perl (0.820-1) ...
Setting up liblouis-data (3.33.0-1) ...
Setting up libabsl20230802:amd64 (20230802.1-4.2) ...
Setting up libabsl20230802:i386 (20230802.1-4.2) ...
Setting up libbcpkix-java (1.80-1) ...
Setting up liblouis20:amd64 (3.33.0-1) ...
Setting up libcolorhug2:amd64 (1.4.7-3) ...
Setting up libbcmail-java (1.80-1) ...
Setting up colord (1.4.7-3) ...
warn: The home dir /var/lib/colord you specified already exists.

fatal: The user `colord' already exists, but is not a system user. Exiting.
dpkg: error processing package colord (--configure):
 installed colord package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 13
Processing triggers for man-db (2.13.0-1) ...
Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0t64:i386 (2.83.5-1) ...
Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0t64:amd64 (2.83.5-1) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.16.2-1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.41-3) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 colord

On another machine, adduser had already been upgraded to 3.143,
and I got:

[...]
warn: The home dir /var/lib/colord you specified already exists.

fatal: The system user `colord' already exists. Exiting.

colord.service is a disabled or a static unit not running, not starting it.
[...]

There's also a fatal error, but without "but is not a system user",
and this did not make dpkg fail.

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent at vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
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Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)