dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/init-system-helpers_1.29ubuntu4_all.deb (--unpack): trying to overwrite '/usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d', which is also in package sysv-rc 2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu2

[davidg1982]

I was trying to do a normal apt-get upgrade when I started to run into issues. I am not sure how to fix this since it is a system package. This system was upgraded from 14.04 to 16.04, but it was working fine for awhile.

I started in this thread, but I could not get it working. https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2359412

This machine is now a Proxmox VM, so I have the option to do some testing with it.

#: apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  bsdutils linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic
The following packages will be upgraded:
  apparmor apt apt-transport-https apt-utils bind9-host console-setup console-setup-linux dbus dbus-x11 desktop-file-utils distro-info-data dnsutils docker-engine
  dpkg-dev eject graphviz grub-common grub-pc grub-pc-bin grub2-common init init-system-helpers initramfs-tools initramfs-tools-bin initramfs-tools-core
  keyboard-configuration klibc-utils krb5-locales krb5-multidev libapparmor-perl libapparmor1 libapt-inst2.0 libapt-pkg5.0 libarchive13 libbind9-140 libblkid1
  libc-bin libc-dev-bin libc6 libc6-dev libcdt5 libcgraph6 libdbus-1-3 libdns-export162 libdns162 libdpkg-perl libdrm-amdgpu1 libdrm-intel1 libdrm-nouveau2
  libdrm-radeon1 libdrm2 libevent-2.0-5 libevent-core-2.0-5 libfdisk1 libfreetype6 libfreetype6-dev libgc1c2 libgd-dev libgd3 libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx
  libglapi-mesa libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-data libgnutls-openssl27 libgnutls30 libgssapi-krb5-2 libgssrpc4 libgvc6 libgvpr2 libhogweed4 libicu55 libisc-export160
  libisc160 libisccc140 libisccfg140 libk5crypto3 libkadm5clnt-mit9 libkadm5srv-mit9 libkdb5-8 libklibc libkrb5-3 libkrb5support0 liblwres141 libmount1
  libmysqlclient-dev libmysqlclient20 libnettle6 libpam-systemd libpathplan4 libpci-dev libpci3 libpq-dev libpq5 libsmartcols1 libsmbclient libssh2-1 libssh2-1-dev
  libssl-dev libssl-doc libssl1.0.0 libsystemd0 libtiff5 libtiff5-dev libtiffxx5 libudev-dev libudev1 libuuid1 libwbclient0 libxml2 libxpm-dev libxpm4 libxslt1.1
  linux-firmware linux-libc-dev locales login makedev mongodb-org mongodb-org-mongos mongodb-org-server mongodb-org-shell mongodb-org-tools mount multiarch-support
  mysql-client-5.7 mysql-client-core-5.7 mysql-common mysql-server mysql-server-5.7 mysql-server-core-5.7 nano ntfs-3g ntp ntpdate openssl os-prober passwd pciutils
  python-crypto python-libxml2 python-samba python3-distupgrade python3-update-manager resolvconf samba-common samba-common-bin samba-libs smbclient sudo systemd
  systemd-sysv tcpdump tftp-hpa tftpd-hpa thermald ubuntu-release-upgrader-core udev update-manager-core util-linux uuid-runtime w3m wget
163 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/194 MB of archives.
After this operation, 12.1 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Extracting templates from packages: 100%
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 127087 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../init-system-helpers_1.29ubuntu4_all.deb ...
Unpacking init-system-helpers (1.29ubuntu4) over (1.29ubuntu3) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/init-system-helpers_1.29ubuntu4_all.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/sbin/invoke-rc.d', which is also in package sysv-rc 2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu2
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/init-system-helpers_1.29ubuntu4_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

#: lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS
Release: 16.04

# apt-cache policy init-system-helpers
init-system-helpers:
  Installed: 1.29ubuntu3
  Candidate: 1.29ubuntu4
  Version table:
     1.29ubuntu4 500
        500 https://mirror.network32.net/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 https://mirror.network32.net/ubuntu xenial-updates/main i386 Packages
 *** 1.29ubuntu3 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.29ubuntu1 500
        500 https://mirror.network32.net/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
        500 https://mirror.network32.net/ubuntu xenial/main i386 Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main i386 Packages

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: init-system-helpers 1.29ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-57.78-generic 4.4.35
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-57-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.5
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun May 7 17:03:56 2017
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:
 TERM=screen
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: init-system-helpers
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2017-01-03 (124 days ago)

[Nish Aravamudan (nacc)]

I am unable to reproduce this issue. Per the changelog, sysv-rc (from src:sysvinit) dropped the invoke.rc bits in 2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu1:

sysvinit (2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu1) xenial; urgency=low

  * Dropped various changes for invoke.rc which has moved to
    init-system-helpers.

# apt install --reinstall sysv-rc init-system-helpers
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.
Need to get 50.5 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 sysv-rc all 2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu2 [18.2 kB]
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 init-system-helpers all 1.29ubuntu4 [32.3 kB]
Fetched 50.5 kB in 0s (61.0 kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 25504 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../init-system-helpers_1.29ubuntu4_all.deb ...
Unpacking init-system-helpers (1.29ubuntu4) over (1.29ubuntu4) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Setting up init-system-helpers (1.29ubuntu4) ...
(Reading database ... 25504 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../sysv-rc_2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu2_all.deb ...
Unpacking sysv-rc (2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu2) over (2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu17) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
Setting up sysv-rc (2.88dsf-59.3ubuntu2) ...

and dpkg agrees that sysv-rc no longer contains any invoke-rc references:

# dpkg -L sysv-rc
/.
/etc
/etc/rc0.d
/etc/rc0.d/README
/etc/init.d
/etc/init.d/rcS
/etc/init.d/README
/etc/init.d/rc
/etc/rc3.d
/etc/rc3.d/README
/etc/rc1.d
/etc/rc1.d/README
/etc/rcS.d
/etc/rcS.d/README
/etc/rc2.d
/etc/rc2.d/README
/etc/rc6.d
/etc/rc6.d/README
/etc/rc5.d
/etc/rc5.d/README
/etc/rc4.d
/etc/rc4.d/README
/var
/var/lib
/var/lib/insserv
/usr
/usr/share
/usr/share/lintian
/usr/share/lintian/overrides
/usr/share/lintian/overrides/sysv-rc
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/sysv-rc
/usr/share/doc/sysv-rc/copyright
/usr/share/doc/sysv-rc/README.Debian
/usr/share/doc/sysv-rc/NEWS.Debian.gz
/usr/share/doc/sysv-rc/README.runlevels.gz
/usr/share/sysv-rc
/usr/share/sysv-rc/saveconfig
/usr/share/doc/sysv-rc/changelog.Debian.gz

Can you provide any more details, and perhaps the output for `apt policy sysv-rc`?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for init-system-helpers (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]