dpkg: ../../../lib/dpkg/dump.c:250: w_status: Assertion `pigp->trigpend_head' failed.

[Marius Gavrilescu]

Binary package hint: dpkg

When I try to install/remove a package through dpkg(or apt-get) I get this error message:
dpkg: ../../../lib/dpkg/dump.c:250: w_status: Assertion `pigp->trigpend_head' failed.
I'm using dpkg 1.16.0.3ubuntu1 on ubuntu oneiric

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: dpkg 1.16.0.3ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0-0.1-generic 3.0.0-rc2
Uname: Linux 3.0-0-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Jun 17 18:50:41 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Release i386 (20101007)
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
SourcePackage: dpkg
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-06-15 (2 days ago)

[Marius Gavrilescu (mgvx)]

Here's a core dump of dpkg -r openbox

[Raphaël Hertzog (hertzog)]

Please attach a tarball with /var/lib/dpkg/status and the content of /var/lib/dpkg/triggers/.

[Marius Gavrilescu (mgvx)]

I might have broken something in /var/lib/dpkg/triggers because dpkg kept complaining about the format of /var/lib/dpkg/triggers/Unincorp . I removed it but it kept coming back so I ran something like `while true;do rm Unincorp;done' while running APT. It worked the first time, the second, third I got the assertion fail in the description
I might have also broken someting with /var/lib/dpkg/status because someone on the ubuntu forums(I was looking for help for the previous problem -- the one with the format of Unincorp) recommended copying status-old over status.

[Marius Gavrilescu (mgvx)]

"It worked the first time, the second, third" should read "It worked the first time, but the second, third". forgot to proofread

[Raphaël Hertzog (hertzog)]

Ok, thanks for the information. That said no wonder that things break when you do such things without understanding the implications :-)

See also https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/798803 for the bug that caused your initial problem.

[Marius Gavrilescu (mgvx)]

Thanks a lot. It works after doing the steps in comment #6 from bug #798803 and then renaming Unincorp.new to Unincorp in /var/lib/dpkg/triggers/

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package dpkg - 1.16.1ubuntu1

---------------
dpkg (1.16.1ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

  * Resynchronise with Debian. Remaining changes:
    - Merge from git://git.debian.org/users/hertzog/dpkg.git
      pu/multiarch/full for multiarch support.
    - On upgrade from 1.16.0~ubuntu[1-3], if /var/lib/dpkg/info/$arch is a
      directory, migrate the contents to var/lib/dpkg/info; and handle the
      reverse on downgrade. This does not handle metadata for packages of
      foreign architectures.
    - Add DPKG_UNTRANSLATED_MESSAGES environment check so that higher-level
      tools can get untranslated dpkg terminal log messages while at the
      same time having translated debconf prompts. This is useful for tools
      that hide the dpkg terminal by default and use apport for bug
      reporting with the untranslated error message.
    - Add /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/multiarch as a conffile on amd64, so that
      users are guaranteed to always have it after upgrade even if they
      don't use update-manager for the upgrade itself.
  * Continue exporting compiler flags in dpkg-buildpackage, since we do not
    want to regress hardening support in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. We will revisit
    this for Ubuntu 12.10.

dpkg (1.16.1) unstable; urgency=low

  [ Raphaël Hertzog ]
  * Dpkg::Deps: Implement new "reset" method and bump module version to 1.01
    due to this.
  * Improved description of --search in dpkg-query(1). Closes: #621066
    Thanks to Lars Buitinck <email address hidden> for the patch.
  * Let update-alternatives fsync() its administrative files before
    moving them in place to avoid empty files with some filesystems.
    LP: #344019
  * Tighten the regexp used by dpkg-source to ignore the .pc directory of
    quilt. Thanks to Mike Hommey for noticing the problem.
  * Change behaviour of dpkg-source's --extend-diff-ignore to also
    extend the current diff-ignore if it has already been set.
  * Fix dependency checking code to consider a dependency on a virtual
    package provided by a package in triggers-pending status as satisfied.
  * Do not fail when encountering a pre-dependency in triggers-awaited state,
    instead process the awaited triggers. Closes: #526774
  * "any" no longer hides "all" in the Architecture field of a .dsc.
  * Fix dpkg --remove to really remove the triggers from the various
    internal files in /var/lib/dpkg/info/triggers/. Closes: #525160
  * Avoid a perl warning in dpkg-gensymbols when no symbols file has been
    generated (because it would have been empty). Closes: #626684
  * Re-enable the Package-List field but drop the Architecture column since we
    have no clear use case yet. It can always be added later on.
    Also drop the source line since it duplicates other fields.
    Closes: #619131
  * Add the extraction part of Dpkg::Source::Package to the supported API.
    Useful to extract source packages without having to depend on dpkg-source
    (and hence dpkg-dev).
  * Add the Dpkg::Vendor module to the supported API. Useful for lintian
    when dpkg-dev is absent.
  * Check presence of required parameters in dpkg-vendor. Closes: #628726
    Thanks to Niels Thykier <n...

[Jared Ryan Burkamper (jaredburkamper)]

i have this problem and nothing i try helps. i tried the fix on the one comment, but, seeing as you have to use dpkg to fix dpkg, it didn't work.

[Raphaël Hertzog (hertzog)]

Jared, please attach a tarball with /var/lib/dpkg/status and the content of /var/lib/dpkg/triggers/. And what dpkg invocation is failing exactly ?

[Hansvv1 (hansvv1)]

I've just installed Lubuntu 11.10, with dpkg_1.16.0.3ubuntu5. It gives exactly the same error:
dpkg: ../../../lib/dpkg/dump.c:250: w_status: Assertion `pigp->trigpend_head' failed.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg exited unexpectedly