dpkg-deb unable to install/upgrade oracle-java8-installer

[Paul Crawford]

Running a 10.04 LTS machine (32-bit) and it seem that the oracle-java8-installer now uses the more recent compression option that is not supported by the version of dpkg that is currently used by 10.04

Indirectly this is a security risk as java is well known for vulnerabilities and being unable to update a package when it has come through the official repository is a problem!

Upon running 'apt-get upgrade' this was the error message:

Preparing to replace oracle-java8-installer 8b115-0~webupd8~0 (using .../oracle-java8-installer_8b119-0~webupd8~0_all.deb) ...
oracle-license-v1-1 license has already been accepted
Unpacking replacement oracle-java8-installer ...
dpkg-deb: file `/var/cache/apt/archives/oracle-java8-installer_8b119-0~webupd8~0_all.deb' contains ununderstood data member data.tar.xz , giving up
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/oracle-java8-installer_8b119-0~webupd8~0_all.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile returned error exit status 2

System information:

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS
Release: 10.04

$ apt-cache policy dpkg
dpkg:
  Installed: 1.15.5.6ubuntu4.6
  Candidate: 1.15.5.6ubuntu4.6
  Version table:
 *** 1.15.5.6ubuntu4.6 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.15.5.6ubuntu4.5 0
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid-security/main Packages
     1.15.5.6ubuntu4 0
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/main Packages

[Paul Crawford (psc-sat)]

My suggestion is to (ideally) have the later version back-ported to 10.04 so this problem is not an issue for the remaining 1.5 years or so of "long term support" for such servers, or to make sure Oracle uses the older style of compression so the package is usable.

[joshiss (joshiss)]

I am facing similar problems in 13.10

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up oracle-java8-installer (8b123-0~webupd8~0) ...
Downloading Oracle Java 8...
--2014-01-21 16:41:01-- http://www.java.net/download/jdk8/archive/b123/binaries/jdk-8-ea-bin-b123-linux-i586-10_jan_2014.tar.gz
Resolving www.java.net (www.java.net)... 209.189.227.38
Connecting to www.java.net (www.java.net)|209.189.227.38|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: https://www.java.net/download/jdk8/archive/b123/binaries/jdk-8-ea-bin-b123-linux-i586-10_jan_2014.tar.gz [following]
--2014-01-21 16:41:02-- https://www.java.net/download/jdk8/archive/b123/binaries/jdk-8-ea-bin-b123-linux-i586-10_jan_2014.tar.gz
Connecting to www.java.net (www.java.net)|209.189.227.38|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 303 See Other
Location: http://download.java.net/jdk8/archive/b123/binaries/jdk-8-ea-bin-b123-linux-i586-10_jan_2014.tar.gz?q=download/jdk8/archive/b123/binaries/jdk-8-ea-bin-b123-linux-i586-10_jan_2014.tar.gz [following]
--2014-01-21 16:41:04-- http://download.java.net/jdk8/archive/b123/binaries/jdk-8-ea-bin-b123-linux-i586-10_jan_2014.tar.gz?q=download/jdk8/archive/b123/binaries/jdk-8-ea-bin-b123-linux-i586-10_jan_2014.tar.gz
Resolving download.java.net (download.java.net)... 137.254.120.26
Connecting to download.java.net (download.java.net)|137.254.120.26|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 416 Requested range not satisfiable

    The file is already fully retrieved; nothing to do.

Download done.
Removing outdated cached downloads...
sha256sum mismatch jdk-8-ea-bin-b123-linux-i586-10_jan_2014.tar.gz
Oracle JDK 8 is NOT installed.
dpkg: error processing oracle-java8-installer (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 oracle-java8-installer

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The package you are having an issue with, oracle-java8-installer_8b119-0~webupd8~0_all.deb, is not one provided in the official Ubuntu repositories and subsequently there is nothing Ubuntu developers can do to fix the issue with that package.

[Paul Crawford (psc-sat)]

No, the underlying problem is with dpkg not recognising the .xz compression type used in Oracle's .deb file.
This is ALREADY fixed in the 12.04 version, so for from there being "nothing the Ubuntu developers can do", there is - backport the later version of dpkg that supports the .xz file type!