package acroread 8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.10.2 failed to install/upgrade: trying to overwrite `/usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz', which is also in package acroread-debian-files

[xdaikatanax]

Binary package hint: acroread

Adobe Acrobat failed to update through the package manager in 8.10 updating in synaptic 0.62.1ubuntu10. Here's the error message:

E: /var/cache/apt/archives/acroread_9.1.0-7intrepid1_i386.deb: trying to overwrite `/usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz', which is also in package acroread-debian-files

ProblemType: Package
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
ErrorMessage: trying to overwrite `/usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz', which is also in package acroread-debian-files
NonfreeKernelModules: ath_hal
Package: acroread 8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.10.2
SourcePackage: acroread
Title: package acroread 8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.10.2 failed to install/upgrade: trying to overwrite `/usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz', which is also in package acroread-debian-files
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-9-generic i686

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Could you please post the output of:

"apt-cache policy acroread acroread-debian-files"

I really don't think there is a bug here - it seems likely that you're trying to install conflicting software from 2 separate repositories.

[stuart e anderson (stuart-errol-anderson)]

 apt-cache policy acroread acroread-debian-files
acroread:
  Installed: 8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.10.2
  Candidate: 9.1.0-7intrepid1
  Version table:
     9.1.0-7intrepid1 0
        500 http://archive.canonical.com intrepid/partner Packages
 *** 8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.10.2 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
acroread-debian-files:
  Installed: 0.0.24medibuntu1.1
  Candidate: 0.0.24medibuntu1.1
  Version table:
 *** 0.0.24medibuntu1.1 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Colin Stark (cstark)]

I had the same issue here.

The problem is that Canonical added Adobe Reader to the Partner repository and updated it to its newest version (9.1).
The medibuntu Adobe Reader packages are at version 8.3 and somehow the packaging was done differently were the files were split between the two packages acroread and acroread-debian-files.

What you need to do is remove acroread-debian-files which is no longer needed for the newest version of Adobe Reader and you'll be fine.

What can be done to prevent this from happening when everyone upgrades to jaunty is to mark the "acroread-debian-files" package as incompatible with the acroread package which should automatically remove it when upgrading.

[Colin Stark (cstark)]

I meant version 8.1.3 of course.
And the other 2 packages that are now redundant and likely incompatible are "acroread-plugins" and "mozilla-acroread".
These 2 packages have been included in the Canonical acroread package and should also be removed automatically when updating.
Since a lot of people do use the Medibuntu repository (it was the easiest way to get Adobe Reader up until version 8.10) this probably shouldn't be ignored.

[VK Sameer (vksameer)]

The acroread 9.1.0 upgrade/installation only went through after this:
sudo apt-get remove acroread
sudo apt-get install acroread

Removing just acroread-debian-files failed with these messages:

$ sudo apt-get remove acroread-debian-files
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libstdc++5 libxpp3-java libbackport-util-concurrent-java libxom-java
[SNIPPED EXTRANEOUS LINES]
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  acroread
Suggested packages:
  libldap2
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  acroread-debian-files acroread-dictionary-de acroread-l10n-de
The following packages will be upgraded:
  acroread
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/63.4MB of archives.
After this operation, 71.0MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 205202 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing acroread-dictionary-de ...
(Reading database ... 205186 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace acroread 8.1.3-0medibuntu0.8.10.2 (using .../acroread_9.1.0-7intrepid1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement acroread ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/acroread_9.1.0-7intrepid1_i386.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite `/usr/share/man/man1/acroread.1.gz', which is also in package acroread-debian-files
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/acroread_9.1.0-7intrepid1_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[Diego Collaziol (dcollaziol)]

working by removing acroread and acroread-debian-files, then reinstall the acroread.