googleearth-4.2: sub-process post-removal script outputs error code 128

[Matthias Mailänder]

Can't completely remove the package googleearth-4.2 version 4.2.205.5730-0medibuntu4 (hardy).

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Please provide more infos (/var/log/apt/term.log may be a good start).
Thanks.

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Thanks.

According to the log file, your MIME database seems to contain strange keys, such as 'chemical/x-alchemy'. Googleearth package removal script calls "update-mime-database /usr/share/mime", which probably fails because of these strange mimetypes.

This does not look like a bug in googleearth package though.

[Matthias Mailänder (mailaender)]

Okay, removing the package chemical-mime-data fixed the problem. So this is in fact Bug #217335

[Daniel Leidert (dleidert-deactivatedaccount)]

It is really hard to add a "set -ex" to the postrm script to check this claim:

+ exec /usr/share/debconf/frontend /var/lib/dpkg/info/googleearth-4.2.postrm purge
+ which update-mime-database
+ [ -x /usr/bin/update-mime-database ]
+ update-mime-database /usr/share/mime
+ which update-mime
+ update-mime
+ [ purge = purge ]
+ [ -e /usr/share/debconf/confmodule ]
+ . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
+ [ ! 1 ]
+ [ -z ]
+ exec
+ [ ]
+ exec
+ DEBCONF_REDIR=1
+ export DEBCONF_REDIR
+ db_purge
+ _db_cmd PURGE
+ IFS= printf %s\n PURGE
+ IFS=
 read -r _db_internal_line
+ RET=20 Unsupported command "unknown" (full line was "Unknown media type in type 'chemical/x-alchemy'") received from confmodule.
+ return 20

This is clearly *not* failing during update-mime-database!

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Right, but this bug occurs because of chemical-mime-data (because the chemical/* mimetypes aren't registered to the IANA yet).

[Daniel Leidert (dleidert-deactivatedaccount)]

I sent a mail to the debconf maintainers and debian-devel to discuss the issue.
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2008/10/msg00790.html

[Daniel Leidert (dleidert-deactivatedaccount)]

It will fail with *every* output created by the postrm script and the commands it calls. You can reproduce it by simply adding

echo "Make me fail."

to the postrm script (and without c-m-d) and it will fail too. This is not fault of c-m-d.

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

Daniel: What's the status of this? Has a bug been filed against debconf/shared-mime-info?

[Chris Jones (foxmulder881)]

I am getting this error when attempting to completely-remove googleearth-4.2. It can't be anything to do with the chemical-mime-data package as I don't even have it installed on my system and never have.

[Lionel Le Folgoc (mrpouit)]

On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 06:47:36AM -0000, Chris Jones wrote:
> I am getting this error when attempting to completely-remove
> googleearth-4.2. It can't be anything to do with the chemical-mime-data
> package as I don't even have it installed on my system and never have.
>

Could you edit the postrm script
(/var/lib/dpkg/info/googleearth-4.2.postrm), and replace "set -e" by
"set -x" at the beginning? There is probably a command that outputs
something and triggers this issue as well.

--
Lionel Le Folgoc - https://launchpad.net/~mrpouit
EEBA 555E 0CDE 92BB 3AF4 4AB3 45A0 357B 5179 5910

[Chris Jones (foxmulder881)]

I tried to edit /var/lib/dpkg/info/googleearth-4.2.postrm and got the following output:
Note: I occasionally get this output when installing/removing applications yet I have no idea what is triggering it.

"chris@ubuntu:~$ sudo /var/lib/dpkg/info/googleearth-4.2.postrm
Unknown media type in type 'all/all'

Unknown media type in type 'all/allfiles'

Unknown media type in type 'uri/mms'

Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmst'

Unknown media type in type 'uri/mmsu'

Unknown media type in type 'uri/pnm'

Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspt'

Unknown media type in type 'uri/rtspu'

Unknown media type in type 'fonts/package'

Unknown media type in type 'interface/x-winamp-skin'"

[Chris Jones (foxmulder881)]

Disregard my comment above as I had forgotten to add "gedit" after "sudo".

I tried again and edited the file and then tried to completely remove googleearth-4.2 again but still receive the same original error message.

[Daniel Leidert (dleidert-deactivatedaccount)]

It is still the same issue. update-mime-database throws some warnings to stdout, which makes debconf fail.

[Sparky432 (sparky432)]

I also had this issue in Intrepid after installing googleearth from the Medibuntu repository. I finally managed to purge the googleearth-4.2 package which was causing dpkg errors by making the changes below to
/var/lib/dpkg/info/googleearth-4.2.postrm

"
You can also try to replace:
        update-mime-database /usr/share/mime
with:
        update-mime-database /usr/share/mime >/dev/null 2>&1
 "
(as given by Lionel Le Folgoc in https://bugs.launchpad.net/medibuntu/+bug/299430/comments/5)

Attached is the terminal output showing the errors I was getting before.

[Chris Jones (foxmulder881)]

Thanks Sparky432. That worked. Cheers mate.

[Gijs ter Beek (gijsterbeek)]

Also works with Google Earth 4.3 ;)