Can't do erlang releases due to missing file, broken link

[Stefan Strigler]

When trying to do a erlang release from within rebar I get:

[...]
==> rel (generate)
ERROR: Unable to generate spec: read file info /usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcov-tool.1.gz failed
ERROR: Unexpected error: rebar_abort
ERROR: generate failed while processing /home/ubuntu/MongooseIM-2.0.0beta1/rel: rebar_abort

This is due to a broken link from

$ ls -l /usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcov-tool.1.gz
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 Feb 11 09:47 /usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcov-tool.1.gz -> gcov-tool-5.1.gz

$ ls -l /usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/gcov-tool-5.1.gz
ls: cannot access '/usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/gcov-tool-5.1.gz': No such file or directory

Temporary solution:

$ sudo touch /usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/gcov-tool-5.1.gz

System:

# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Release: 16.04

# apt-cache policy erlang
erlang:
  Installed: 1:18.3-dfsg-1ubuntu3
  Candidate: 1:18.3-dfsg-1ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 1:18.3-dfsg-1ubuntu3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Apparently the file missing is supposedly to be created by erlang-mode

# apt-cache policy erlang-mode
erlang-mode:
  Installed: 1:18.3-dfsg-1ubuntu3
  Candidate: 1:18.3-dfsg-1ubuntu3
  Version table:
 *** 1:18.3-dfsg-1ubuntu3 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[James Henderson (james-m-henderson)]

I ran into the same issue while trying to install "lux" (https://github.com/hawk/lux)

#>sudo make install
make[1]: Entering directory '/home/vagrant/code/lux/src'
mkdir -p /usr/local/lux
/home/vagrant/code/lux/bin/lux --install /usr/local/lux
Installing lux as a standalone system... /usr/local/lux
ERROR: read file info /usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/gcov-tool.1.gz failed
Makefile:41: recipe for target 'install' failed

It is the same issue.

#>lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
Release: 16.04

apt-cache policy erlang-mode shows the same erlang-mode installed as above.

Here are all the files in that directory that have broken symlinks.

#>find /usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/ -xtype l
/usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/gconftool.1.gz
/usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/gcov-tool.1.gz
/usr/lib/erlang/man/man1/x86_64-linux-gnu-gcov-tool.1.gz