Running 'aptitude update' clears hold flags on packages

[Mike Nguyen]

When running an 'aptitude update' for the very first time, it seems to clear up any hold flags that were previous put in place via 'apt-mark hold <package>'.

1:
root@cb-qa-lb-1:~# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS
Release: 18.04

2:
root@cb-qa-lb-1:~# apt-cache policy aptitude
aptitude:
  Installed: 0.8.10-6ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.8.10-6ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.8.10-6ubuntu1 500
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

3:
When a 'hold' flag is set on a package, it should be kept. Doing an 'aptitude update' should not be clearing these package flags. This is not the case as the hold flag is getting removed.

4:
All 'hold' flags on packages that were previously set get cleared.

Upon running 'aptitude update', it seems to create /var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates, and also update /var/lib/dpkg/status, which seems to remove any flags on packages that were present.

Pastebin here with some output: https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/VF6kQRbSmf/

This only seems to happen when running 'aptitude update' on an initial run. Doing an 'apt update' does not cause any issue.

Note that running subsequent 'aptitude update' with /var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates already existing does not seem to cause any issue anymore and any hold flags that get set are kept.

[Mike Nguyen (moozoo)]

I should note that I've also tested this on 16.04.6 and am getting the same unexpected behaviour.

root@ansible:/var/lib/aptitude# lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS
Release: 16.04

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Mike Nguyen (moozoo)]

Another detail that might be worth mentioning...

Running "aptitude update" to create the /var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates file seems to ONLY work from a tty. From a connection with no tty (such as one initiated via ansible), it does not seem to create the file.

I had to work around things by making aptitude actually run a command that will do an action without any doubt (such as... aptitude install -y sudo).

[Carlos Miguel Bustillo Rdguez (charlesm1888)]

I can confirm the problem is present in Debian GNU/Linux 9.11 (stretch) and Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS. I noted the issue after run by the second time an Ansible playbook with the apt module. As a workaround, I set `force_apt_get: yes` in the apt module.

It's very odd this behavior because in my case the file `/var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates` already existed. The first time I ran `aptitude update`, the command cleared all hold flag in packages that had set before; also 'hold' was removed from the status field here `/var/lib/dpkg/status`. Then I marked again the packages with the hold flag and I run `aptitude update`, `aptitude safe-upgrade`, `apt-get update`, `apt-get upgrade`, `apt update` and `apt upgrade` without issues.

Any hints are welcome!

Thanks in advance!!

[Anna Ermolaeva (aermolaeva)]

I can confirm that with aptitude 0.7.4-2ubuntu2 in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial).

[Jason Pell (jason-pellcorp)]

This affects 20.04 as well, as it actually happens every time aptitude update is executed. This effectively makes apt-mark hold pointless for me!

ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo apt-mark hold unattended-upgrades
unattended-upgrades set on hold.
ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo apt-mark showhold
unattended-upgrades
ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo aptitude update
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease

ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo apt-mark showhold
ops@d-vgt-006:~$

ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo apt-mark showhold
ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo apt-mark hold unattended-upgrades
unattended-upgrades set on hold.
ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo apt-mark showhold
unattended-upgrades

ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo aptitude update
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease

ops@d-vgt-006:~$ sudo apt-mark showhold
ops@d-vgt-006:~$

[Jason Pell (jason-pellcorp)]

Every time I run aptitude update, the /var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates is updated again, so I guess a change in behavior from 18.04 perhaps!

[Francois Scheurer (scheuref)]

same issue here on ubuntu jammy with all holds being cleared after initial 'aptitude update', subsequent 'aptitude update' are not clearing the holds, as described in comment #4 above.

(BTW, I thought that "apt update" was doing the same as "aptitude update" but this issue showed me that this is not the case.)

#lsb_release -id
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS

# dpkg -l | egrep apt
ii apt 2.4.8 amd64 commandline package manager
ii apt-transport-https 2.4.8 all transitional package for https support
ii apt-utils 2.4.8 amd64 package management related utility programs
ii aptitude 0.8.13-3ubuntu1 amd64 terminal-based package manager
ii aptitude-common 0.8.13-3ubuntu1 all architecture independent files for the aptitude package manager
ii libapt-pkg6.0:amd64 2.4.8 amd64 package management runtime library
ii libpcap0.8:amd64 1.10.1-4build1 amd64 system interface for user-level packet capture
ii python-apt-common 2.3.0ubuntu2.1 all Python interface to libapt-pkg (locales)
ii python3-apt 2.3.0ubuntu2.1 amd64 Python 3 interface to libapt-pkg
ii tuned 2.15.0-1 all daemon for monitoring and adaptive tuning of system devices