package gconf2 3.2.6-3ubuntu6 failed to install/upgrade: dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed

[Alex Hidalgo]

bug happened while i'm upgrading ubuntu version from 15.10 to 16.04

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: gconf2 3.2.6-3ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-22.38-generic 4.4.8
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Apr 29 08:16:36 2016
ErrorMessage: dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-03-05 (54 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.10 "Wily Werewolf" - Release amd64 (20151021)
RelatedPackageVersions:
 dpkg 1.18.4ubuntu1
 apt 1.2.10ubuntu1
SourcePackage: gconf
Title: package gconf2 3.2.6-3ubuntu6 failed to install/upgrade: dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-04-29 (0 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[golisp (golisp)]

Hello,
I got this error also after upgrade to 16.10 (Alpha).

P.

[Alberto Salvia Novella (es20490446e)]

Did Ubuntu work well after the bug?

When answered, please set the status back to "confirmed". Thank you.

[golisp (golisp)]

Yes.

[golisp (golisp)]

To be honest, Ubuntu was working as expected. I had booted single user mode, forced apt to finish configuration, forced to upgrade packages and rebooted. After reboot was system back to life. But that is not work for end user.

[Mikkel Kirkgaard Nielsen (mikini)]

Hit this same problem while upgrading from 15.10 to 16.04 using the GUI distribution upgrader.

During upgrade I got a dialog reporting the gconf2 dependency problem. The terminal indicates this happened on unpacking the inkscape package. See upper screenshot of attached image.

The upgrade process continued but the upgrader bailed out on processing triggers for the dbus package reporting "Could not install upgrades". See lower screenshot of attached image. The terminal reported "Error in function:".

After this the upgrader closed and running the update-notifier asked me to reboot the system. Manual inspection of the package state using dpkg and further dpkg --configure -a invocations persuaded me that the system was relatively intact and a reboot was done.

The system booted nicely and seems fine now except I receive a CRT configuration error dialog when logging in on the display manager.

Runnnig dpkg --audit returns nothing and the packages that were mentioned during upgrade seems ok:

$ dpkg -l gconf2 dbus inkscape
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-=======================-================-================-===================================================
ii dbus 1.10.6-1ubuntu3. amd64 simple interprocess messaging system (daemon and ut
ii gconf2 3.2.6-3ubuntu6 amd64 GNOME configuration database system (support tools)
ii inkscape 0.91-7ubuntu2 amd64 vector-based drawing program

[Mikkel Kirkgaard Nielsen (mikini)]

Follow up to my comment #7:

Inspecting log files I find what to me looks like a bad recursion in dependency checking when setting up the package gcr (GNOME crypto services). The apt-term log shows 50 of the same error message about unability to run triggers for gconf2 because python3 is unconfigured.

/var/log/dist-upgrade/apt-term.log:
---
Setting up dbus (1.10.6-1ubuntu3.1) ...
A reboot is required to replace the running dbus-daemon.
Please reboot the system when convenient.
Removing obsolete conffile /etc/dbus-1/session.conf ...
Removing obsolete conffile /etc/dbus-1/system.conf ...
Setting up dbus-x11 (1.10.6-1ubuntu3.1) ...
Setting up gcr (3.18.0-1ubuntu1) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent processing triggers for gconf2:
 gconf2 depends on python3; however:
  Package python3 is not configured yet.

***** repeats 50 times ****
dpkg: error processing package gconf2 (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed
dpkg: dependency problems prevent processing triggers for gconf2:
 gconf2 depends on python3; however:
  Package python3 is not configured yet.
*****

dpkg: error processing package gconf2 (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed
dpkg: too many errors, stopping
Errors were encountered while processing:
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
 gconf2
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.
(Reading database ... ^M(Reading database ... 5%^M(Reading database ... 10%^M(Reading database ... 15%^M(Reading database ... 20%^M(Reading database ... 25%^M(Reading database ... 30%^M(Reading database ... 35%^M(Reading database ... 40%^M(Reading database ... 45%^M(Reading database ... 50%^M(Reading database ... 55%^M(Reading database ... 60%^M(Reading database ... 65%^M(Reading database ... 70%^M(Reading database ... 75%^M(Reading database ... 80%^M(Reading database ... 85%^M(Reading database ... 90%^M(Reading database ... 95%^M(Reading database ... 100%^M(Reading database ... 278060 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../gnupg2_2.1.11-6ubuntu2_amd64.deb ...
---

The unconfigured gconf2 state looks like it generates a cascade of dependency errors in subsequent packages, from the main log /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log;
---
2016-11-08 12:14:00,647 ERROR got an error from dpkg for pkg: 'gconf2': 'dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed'
2016-11-08 12:14:00,648 DEBUG running apport_pkgfailure() gconf2: dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed
2016-11-08 12:14:00,657 ERROR got an error from dpkg for pkg: 'gconf2': 'dependency problems - leaving triggers unprocessed'
2016-11-08 12:36:56,197 WARNING no activity on terminal for 300 seconds (Installed libsecret-common (amd64))
2016-11-08 12:36:56,377 ERROR got an error from dpkg for pkg: 'gnupg2': 'dependency problems - leaving uncon...