[Pkg-mailman-hackers] Bug#421895: mailman: upgrade fails with UnicodeDecodeError

[Bernhard Kuemel]

Package: mailman
Version: 1:2.1.9-7
Severity: grave
Tags: l10n
Justification: renders package unusable


After upgrading mailman about a month ago, the install
script failed. Here the output of what happens now:

s:~# apt-get install mailman
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
mailman is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 197 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up mailman (2.1.9-7) ...
Looking for enabled languages (this may take some time) ... done.
Removing unmodified files from /etc/mailman/ja  done.
Directory /etc/mailman/ja not empty, not removed.
Removing unmodified files from /etc/mailman/ko  done.
Directory /etc/mailman/ko not empty, not removed.
Installing site language sv ..................................... done.
Installing site language ru ............................................ done.
Installing site language pt_BR .......................................... done.
Installing site language pt .......................................... done.
Installing site language pl .......................................... done.
Installing site language no ......................................... done.
Installing site language nl ............................................ done.
Installing site language lt .......................................... done.
Installing site language it ............................................ done.
Installing site language hu ............................................ done.
Installing site language fr ............................................ done.
Installing site language fi ................................. done.
Installing site language et .................................. done.
Installing site language es ............................................. done.
Installing site language cs ................................. done.
Installing site language de ................................ done.
Installing site language en ............................................ done.
No updates are necessary.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/lib/mailman/bin/withlist", line 297, in ?
    main()
  File "/var/lib/mailman/bin/withlist", line 272, in main
    r = [do_list(listname, args, func) for listname in Utils.list_names()]
  File "/var/lib/mailman/bin/withlist", line 201, in do_list
    return func(m, *args)
  File "/usr/lib/mailman/bin/unicodify_archives.py", line 59, in unicodify_archives
    h.database.mapKeys(unicodify_fst, archive, hdr)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 341, in mapKeys
    self.__openIndices(archive)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 251, in __openIndices
    t = DumbBTree(os.path.join(arcdir, archive + '-' + i))
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 65, in __init__
    self.load()
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 179, in load
    self.__sort(dirty=1)
  File "/var/lib/mailman/Mailman/Archiver/HyperDatabase.py", line 73, in __sort
    self.sorted.sort()
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xfc in position 1: ordinal not in range(128)
dpkg: error processing mailman (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mailman
W: No priority (or zero) specified for pin
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Mailman remains "not fully installed" and inoperable. It
does not forward list mail to list members. I have not 
checked if incoming mails are lost. I could not find a 
solution to this issue. I have some German language lists, 
so there may be Umlauts around. Not sure, if the language 
settings on my server are correct/relevant.

Bernhard


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 4.0
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (700, 'testing'), (650, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.17.6
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages mailman depends on:
ii  adduser                     3.102        Add and remove users and groups
ii  apache [httpd]              1.3.34-4.1   versatile, high-performance HTTP s
ii  apache-ssl [httpd]          1.3.34-4.1   versatile, high-performance HTTP s
ii  apache2-mpm-prefork [httpd] 2.2.3-4      Traditional model for Apache HTTPD
ii  cron                        3.0pl1-100   management of regular background p
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]       1.5.11       Debian configuration management sy
ii  exim4-daemon-heavy [mail-tr 4.63-17      exim MTA (v4) daemon with extended
ii  libc6                       2.3.6.ds1-13 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  logrotate                   3.7.1-3      Log rotation utility
ii  lsb-base                    3.1-23.1     Linux Standard Base 3.1 init scrip
ii  pwgen                       2.05-1       Automatic Password generation
ii  python                      2.4.4-2      An interactive high-level object-o
ii  python-support              0.5.6        automated rebuilding support for p
ii  ucf                         2.0020       Update Configuration File: preserv

mailman recommends no packages.

-- debconf information:
  mailman/update_passwords:
* mailman/site_languages: sv, ru, pt_BR, pt, pl, no, nl, lt, it, hu, fr, fi, et, es, cs, de, en
* mailman/used_languages: cs de en es et fi fr hu it lt nl no pl pt pt_BR ru sv
* mailman/create_site_list:
* mailman/queue_files_present:
* mailman/default_server_language: sv
* mailman/gate_news: false
  mailman/update_aliases: