[Pkg-zsh-devel] Bug#770226: zsh-common: installation fails for amd arch

[Scott Walsh]

Package: zsh-common
Version: 5.0.7-4
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 3.5

Dear Maintainer,

* What led up to the situation?

Attempting to install zsh

* What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
ineffective)?

aptitude install zsh, which lead to packages being in the 'half'
installed state. Attempting to purge was unsucessful. Had to resort to
dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq zsh zsh-common to resolve the
issue.

* What was the outcome of this action?

I'm not able to install zsh

* What outcome did you expect instead?

Being able to install zsh :)

-- Install Log:
# aptitude install zsh
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  zsh zsh-common{a}
  0 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 361 not
  upgraded.
  Need to get 3,822 kB of archives. After unpacking 13.2 MB will be
  used.
  Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] y
  Get: 1 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing/main zsh-common all
  5.0.7-4 [3,122 kB]
  Get: 2 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/ testing/main zsh amd64 5.0.7-4
  [700 kB]
  Fetched 3,822 kB in 1s (3,297 kB/s)
  Selecting previously unselected package zsh-common.
  (Reading database ... 51859 files and directories currently
  installed.)
  Preparing to unpack .../zsh-common_5.0.7-4_all.deb ...
  dpkg-maintscript-helper: error: original symlink target is not an
  absolute path
  dpkg: error processing archive
  /var/cache/apt/archives/zsh-common_5.0.7-4_all.deb (--unpack):
   subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
   dpkg-maintscript-helper: error: original symlink target is not an
   absolute path
   dpkg: error while cleaning up:
    subprocess new post-removal script returned error exit status 1
    Selecting previously unselected package zsh.
    Preparing to unpack .../archives/zsh_5.0.7-4_amd64.deb ...
    dpkg-maintscript-helper: error: original symlink target is not an
    absolute path
    dpkg: error processing archive
    /var/cache/apt/archives/zsh_5.0.7-4_amd64.deb (--unpack):
     subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
     dpkg-maintscript-helper: error: original symlink target is not an
     absolute path
     dpkg: error while cleaning up:
      subprocess new post-removal script returned error exit status 1
      Errors were encountered while processing:
       /var/cache/apt/archives/zsh-common_5.0.7-4_all.deb
        /var/cache/apt/archives/zsh_5.0.7-4_amd64.deb
        E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
        Failed to perform requested operation on package.  Trying to
        recover:

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'testing-updates'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.14-2-amd64 (SMP w/6 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash