On Wed, Oct 02, 2013 at 03:11:24 -0600, Bob Proulx wrote:
I am helping a buddy with his Sid system. He went several months
without upgrading. Then recently tried to upgrade. This resulted in
some problems. Currently the system produces a segmentation fault
when trying to install packages. For example:
# dpkg-reconfigure debconf
Segmentation fault
# dpkg -i debconf_1.5.49_all.deb
(Reading database ... 387854 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace debconf 1.5.49 (using debconf_1.5.49_all.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement debconf ...
Setting up debconf (1.5.49) ...
dpkg: error processing debconf (--install):
subprocess installed post-installation script was killed by signal (Segmentation fault)
Errors were encountered while processing:
debconf
Of course the segfault makes it difficult to make any forward progress
with dpkg. dpkg is up to date Sid version 1.17.1. But almost all
other packages are older revs from previous days of Sid. I tried
downgrading dpkg to the version in Wheezy but the result was the same.
Thought before I did extreme things that I would ask here in case
someone already hit this in Sid sometime between a few months ago and
now? If so what was the solution?
My guess would be an incomplete or otherwise screwed-up Perl transition
(dpkg-reconfigure is a Perl script and debconf's postinst calls a bunch
of Perl scripts as well). Check the status of the Perl packages on your
friend's machine, here is what I have on up-to-date Sid/amd64:
$ dpkg -l perl\* libperl\* | awk '/^ii/{print $2,$3}'
libperl4-corelibs-perl 0.003-1
libperl5.18 5.18.1-4
perl 5.18.1-4
perl-base 5.18.1-4
perl-doc 5.18.1-4
perl-modules 5.18.1-4
perl-tk 1:804.031-1+b1
perlmagick 8:6.7.7.10-6
Other than that, I can only say that I cannot recall having any problems
with my Sid system in recent months, even though upgrading all packages
that can be upgraded is how I start almost every day.