devscripts-el and emacs cannot be installed in same transaction

[Jonathan Reed]

In Trusty, you cannot install devscripts-el and emacs in the same apt transaction, because devscripts-el's postinst will fail. If emacs is already installed prior to the transaction, it works fine.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Install 14.04 (amd64) from the Desktop CD, accepting all the defaults. (This does not install emacs)
2) Run apt-get install devscripts-el
3) See the transaction fail (a typescript is attached)

Some things to note:
If you install emacsen-common (just emacsen-common, not emacs itself) first, you will see the following errors during the transaction:

Preparing to unpack .../apel_10.8+0.20120427-6_all.deb ...
ERROR: apel is broken - called emacs-package-install as a new-style add-on, but has no compat file.
Preparing to unpack .../debian-el_35.8ubuntu2_all.deb ...
ERROR: debian-el is broken - called emacs-package-install as a new-style add-on, but has no compat file.
Preparing to unpack .../dpkg-dev-el_35.8ubuntu2_all.deb ...
ERROR: dpkg-dev-el is broken - called emacs-package-install as a new-style add-on, but has no compat file.
Preparing to unpack .../devscripts-el_35.8ubuntu2_all.deb ...
ERROR: devscripts-el is broken - called emacs-package-install as a new-style add-on, but has no compat file.

The transaction will still fail as it does above. Despite all the packages above being listed as broken, it's only devscripts-el that can't be installed in the same transaction. All combinations of (dpkg-dev-el, debian-el, apel) and emacs in the same transaction work fine, so it is clear that it's devscripts-el is to blame here. This also seems related to Debian Bug #734531.

Additional info:

(No matter how much I try, or what I set MaxReports to, I cannot convince apport to generate an error log for this failure.)

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS
Release: 14.04

$ apt-cache policy devscripts-el emacs apel emacs24 emacsen-common
devscripts-el:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 35.8ubuntu2
  Version table:
     35.8ubuntu2 0
        500 http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu/ trusty/universe amd64 Packages
emacs:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 45.0ubuntu1
  Version table:
     45.0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
apel:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 10.8+0.20120427-6
  Version table:
     10.8+0.20120427-6 0
        500 http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu/ trusty/universe amd64 Packages
emacs24:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 24.3+1-2ubuntu1
  Version table:
     24.3+1-2ubuntu1 0
        500 http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
emacsen-common:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.0.7
  Version table:
     2.0.7 0
        500 http://mirrors.mit.edu/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages

[Jonathan Reed (jdreed)]

I have attached 3 files:

"typescript" -- a log of the failure as generated by script(1)
"elc_gp0Amo.log" -- the elisp compilation failure that occurred in the aforementioned transaction.
"typescript.with-emacsen-common" -- a log of the failure as generated by script(1), with emacsen-common fully installed and configured prior to initiating the transaction.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Sudhir Khanger (sudhirkhanger)]

emacs-goodies-el also has the same problem.

Preparing to unpack .../emacs-goodies-el_35.8ubuntu2_all.deb ...
ERROR: emacs-goodies-el is broken - called emacs-package-install as a new-style add-on, but has no compat file.

[Sudhir Khanger (sudhirkhanger)]

emacs-goodies-el also has the same problem.

Preparing to unpack .../emacs-goodies-el_35.8ubuntu2_all.deb ...
ERROR: emacs-goodies-el is broken - called emacs-package-install as a new-style add-on, but has no compat file.