libc6 and/or libc6-i686 upgrade fail

[Markus Kienast]

When upgrading from Feisty to Gutsy, the process fails when trying to upgrade libc6 and libc6-i686. It is complaining that there are still files in /lib/tls which don't belong to any installed package. /lib/tls files belong to libc6-i686 while I am not completely sure anymore whether libc6-i686 or libc6 itself was complaining it could not perform its installation (I believe libc6-i686).

I guess when libc6-686 was removed, any evidence of it being installed was removed from the dpkg DB, but the files in /lib/tls have to be kept there in order not to render the system unusable. When dpkg then wants to install the new version of libc6-i686 it finds the files there and does not want to overwrite them. When I remove the files by hand, of course nothing works anymore. All commands produce a segmentation fault.

I was not able to --force-all the installation. Just does not work. I rsynced the system I wanted to upgrad several times with a backup and tried to upgrade again with exactly the same result. So there was no way for me to upgrade an existing Feisty installation to Gutsy. I ended up installing the system from scratch.

[Markus Kienast (elias1884)]

Why did nobody ever ask me anything about this bug?

I reproduced it several times!

Well, if this is still the case, you all will find out the hard way on the 18th of Oct.

[Markus Kienast (elias1884)]

This bug could turn out to be a big embarrassment for Ubuntu. Just like the X breakage that leaded to developing unbreakable X. Somebody better have a look on this!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Why did you subscribe me to this bug? I don't work on libc6 and I've no idea about this bug. It's likely a local issue or due to something you are doing or we would have received other duplicates

[Juergen Scholz (juergen.scholz)]

I have reproduced this bug on a machine here - rendering it completely useless.
But: I have a backup which I could restore. The machine is in the state from right before the backup.

I am willing to supply information to help solve this bug!

[Juergen Scholz (juergen.scholz)]

Maybe this is of further interest:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/glibc/+bug/88673

[Juergen Scholz (juergen.scholz)]

I also got this behaviour with a feisty system.

....
....

Richte libhal-storage1 ein (0.5.9.1-6ubuntu5) ...

Richte libdb4.2 ein (4.2.52+dfsg-2ubuntu1) ...
Richte libglu1-mesa ein (7.0.1-1ubuntu3) ...

Richte eject ein (2.1.5-2ubuntu2) ...
Richte psmisc ein (22.5-1) ...

Richte libc6-i686 ein (2.6.1-1ubuntu10) ...
Segmentation fault
dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten von libc6-i686 (--configure):
 Unterprozess post-installation script gab den Fehlerwert 139 zurück
Richte libperl5.8 ein (5.8.8-7ubuntu3.1) ...
dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten von libperl5.8 (--configure):
 Unterprozess post-installation script mit Signal (Segmentation fault) getötet
dpkg: Abhängigkeitsprobleme verhindern Konfiguration von perl-suid:
 perl-suid hängt ab von libperl5.8 (= 5.8.8-7ubuntu3.1); aber:
  Paket libperl5.8 ist noch nicht konfiguriert.
dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten von perl-suid (--configure):
 Abhängigkeitsprobleme - lasse es unkonfiguriert
Richte dictionaries-common ein (0.81.2ubuntu1) ...

....
....

and then it's gone.

Will this be fixed?

[Juergen Scholz (juergen.scholz)]

It seems as if reinstalling _all_ libs in /libs doesn't help.

I used this
<code>
for i in "e2fslibs" "libacl1" "libattr1" "libblkid1" "libbz2-1.0" "libc6" "libcap1" "libcomerr2" "libconsole" "libdevmapper1.02" "libgcc1" "libiw28" "libklibc" "libncurses5" "libncursesw5" "libnss-ldap" "libnss-mdns" "libpam0g" "libparted1.7-1" "libpopt0" "libreadline5" "libselinux1" "libsepol1" "libslang2" "libss2" "libsysfs2" "libusb-0.1-4" "libusplash0" "libuuid1" "libvolume-id0" "libwrap0" "libx86-1" "procps"; do aptitude reinstall $i; done
</code>

and the upgrade still fails.

Output of do-update:
....
....
Richte libhal-storage1 ein (0.5.9.1-6ubuntu5) ...

Richte libdb4.2 ein (4.2.52+dfsg-2ubuntu1) ...
Richte libglu1-mesa ein (7.0.1-1ubuntu3) ...

Richte eject ein (2.1.5-2ubuntu2) ...
Richte psmisc ein (22.5-1) ...

Richte libc6-i686 ein (2.6.1-1ubuntu10) ...
Segmentation fault
dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten von libc6-i686 (--configure):
 Unterprozess post-installation script gab den Fehlerwert 139 zurück
Richte libperl5.8 ein (5.8.8-7ubuntu3.1) ...
dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten von libperl5.8 (--configure):
 Unterprozess post-installation script mit Signal (Segmentation fault) getötet
dpkg: Abhängigkeitsprobleme verhindern Konfiguration von perl-suid:
 perl-suid hängt ab von libperl5.8 (= 5.8.8-7ubuntu3.1); aber:
  Paket libperl5.8 ist noch nicht konfiguriert.
dpkg: Fehler beim Bearbeiten von perl-suid (--configure):
 Abhängigkeitsprobleme - lasse es unkonfiguriert
Richte dictionaries-common ein (0.81.2ubuntu1) ...
....
....

Will this ever be fixed?

[Juergen Scholz (juergen.scholz)]

Okay! Here is what worked for me.

Get the packages
  libc6_2.6.1-1ubuntu10_i386.deb
  libc6-i686_2.6.1-1ubuntu10_i386.deb
from a gutsy system.

Remove libc6-i686 and ubuntu-minimal:
  # aptitude purge libc6-i686 ubuntu-minimal

This _will_ put out error messages. The directory /lib/tls/i606/cmov cannot be deletet, since it is not empty/the removal of the package does not delete them. This makes the next step the removal of these directories:
  # rm -rf /lib/tls

Now it is possible to update libc6 and libc6-i686 by issuing:
  # dpkg --install libc6_2.6.1-1ubuntu10_i386.deb
  # dpkg --install libc6-i686_2.6.1-1ubuntu10_i386.deb

If you system has not crashed until now you are safe to update to gutsy. :-)
Do that with any method you like. This includes modifiying /etc/apt/sources.list and using aptitude, using do-release-upgrade or any graphical method.

SUGGESTION FOR REAL BUGFIX:
Installing a libc6-i686 should
  - create /etc/ld.so.nohwcap
  - run ldconfig
  - remove the old library files (or the package shouldn't care about overwriting)
  - install the new ones
  - removal of /etc/ld.so.nohwcap
  - ldconfig

I hope this will be fixed ... it took me so long to figure that out. It's a pity when a system is unable to boot after a dist-upgrade. This is nothing for the average user.

Any confirmations if this works for you would really be appreciated!!

[Juergen Scholz (juergen.scholz)]

I nominated this for feisty, since the problem seems to be in the removal procedure of libc6-i686.

  - installing the 2.6.1 libc6-i686 from gutsy works even with feisty
  - deinstalling of libc6-i686 leaves files behind
  - upgrading from feisty libc6-i686 to gutsy libc6-i686 does not work

[valb (valb)]

same bug for upgrade from gutsy to hoardy =/

[Juergen Scholz (juergen.scholz)]

Meushi: Nominate it for hardy.

I'm a bit disappointed that nobody investigated this, too. Did you try my workaround? Does it still work?

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

Sorry that no-one got back to you on this. Unfortunately, neither Feisty nor Gutsy are supported anymore. Can you confirm if this is still a problem in a supported version, preferably Jaunty? Thank you.

[valb (valb)]

erf, actually it's been a year now.
feisty and gutsy are forgotten for long, and i can't tell for jaunty
as i've moved to a distro that fits me better.
i wish you good luck anyway.
bye.

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 11:58 PM, Teej <email address hidden> wrote:
> Sorry that no-one got back to you on this. Unfortunately, neither Feisty
> nor Gutsy are supported anymore. Can you confirm if this is still a
> problem in a supported version, preferably Jaunty? Thank you.
>
> ** Changed in: glibc (Ubuntu)
>       Status: New => Incomplete
>
> --
> libc6 and/or libc6-i686 upgrade fail
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/136337
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[Juergen Scholz (juergen.scholz)]

I do not have the backup of the machine anymore. I don't think I can supply information for this matter anymore.
If something related breaks during the next update then I'll get back to this bug. ;-)
I suggest: Close.

[xteejx (xteejx-deactivatedaccount)]

No problem guys. Thanks for updating us, and good luck!