ubiquity fails assertion when the live CD has broken packages

[Alexandre Otto Strube]

Binary package hint: ubiquity

I accidentaly generated a Live CD with some broken package. The installation then stuck at the end, at /usr/share/ubiquity/install.py.

Problem resides in line 925, which is a assert without a try/exception block.

As I tried bypassing it, I discovered that install will then fail later, when trying to upgrade the progress bar. The syslog which describes the error is attached.

[Alexandre Otto Strube (surak)]

If I change the following line (/usr/share/ubiquity/install.py - line 925)

from
                        assert cache._depcache.BrokenCount == 0

to
                    try:
                        assert cache._depcache.BrokenCount == 0
                    except AssertionError:
                        print >>sys.stderr, ("There are broken packages on the system. depcache.BrokenCount is not equal to zero.")

It will then fail later, as the attached syslog tells.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

The assert is deliberate. try/except around an assert would be amazingly pointless. :-)

Could you try this with ubiquity 1.0.13, which I recently uploaded to dapper-updates? (Also make sure to upgrade any other ubiquity-* packages you have installed.) Although I haven't changed this assert there - and I'm quite reluctant to weaken that particular assertion - the failure after your proposed weakening of the assertion should be a lot less spectacular.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

ubiquity (1.4.5) feisty; urgency=low

  * Handle migration-assistant/failed-unmount being asked from ma-apply.
  * If installing or removing packages fails, then display a helpful error
    message and try to continue rather than crashing; furthermore, avoid
    installing language packs or removing packages when there are broken
    packages on the target system (LP: #54282, #69470, #80938).
  * Don't crash if Install exits due to SIGINT, SIGTERM, or SIGKILL, since
    these are probably user-generated.
  * Prepare for partman-partitioning/confirm_resize being asked during
    autopartitioning (partman-auto 62ubuntu9).
  * Do a better job of trying to get the exit code of subsidiary processes.
  * Update translations from Rosetta.
  * Automatic update of included source packages: hw-detect 1.45ubuntu3,
    migration-assistant 0.4.3, partman-auto 62ubuntu9, partman-base
    105ubuntu2, user-setup 1.8ubuntu3.

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Sat, 31 Mar 2007 01:26:33 +0100