aptitude -d Failed to write temporary StateFile /var/lib/apt/extended_states.tmp - also consumes CPU power and takes a while to finish the operation after download

[totya]

If I use aptitude with the -d option it consumes a lot of CPU power and takes a while to finish
(give me the prompt) after the download. Before aptitude give me back the prompt print the following
error message:

E: Failed to write temporary StateFile /var/lib/apt/extended_states.tmp

Until today I haven't encountered with this phenomenon. So aptitude with the -d option worked well
when Ubuntu 12.04 Beta1 released.

Without the -d option everything is just fine.

I've created a strace output with the following way:

root@penge:~# strace -o aptitude.strace aptitude -d install vim
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  vim vim-runtime{a}
0 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 6,872 kB of archives. After unpacking 24.8 MB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] y
Get: 1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main vim-runtime all 2:7.3.429-2ubuntu2 [5,893 kB]
Get: 2 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main vim i386 2:7.3.429-2ubuntu2 [979 kB]
Fetched 6,872 kB in 11s (610 kB/s)
E: Failed to write temporary StateFile /var/lib/apt/extended_states.tmp

I will try to upload the strace file later (48M without compression).

Here's a typical top output when aptitude -d run after the donwload has been finished:

top - 19:59:06 up 14 min, 3 users, load average: 1.69, 1.82, 1.05
Tasks: 153 total, 3 running, 150 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 57.1%us, 13.8%sy, 0.0%ni, 0.0%id, 23.3%wa, 0.0%hi, 5.8%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 1024800k total, 788808k used, 235992k free, 21360k buffers
Swap: 1046524k total, 58424k used, 988100k free, 245972k cached

  PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
 2527 root 20 0 59552 22m 9.8m S 47.7 2.3 3:15.38 aptitude
 2654 test 20 0 425m 344m 70m S 13.9 34.5 1:20.56 oneconf-service
 2526 root 20 0 2384 720 624 S 1.7 0.1 0:11.85 strace
 2084 test 20 0 90956 11m 5728 S 1.0 1.1 0:06.74 gnome-terminal
 2153 test 20 0 54616 7764 4780 S 0.7 0.8 0:03.84 update-notifier
12259 root 20 0 8776 4436 732 R 0.7 0.4 0:00.02 dpkg
12261 root 20 0 8120 3876 1916 R 0.7 0.4 0:00.02 dpkg-preconfigu
    7 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0.3 0.0 0:02.01 watchdog/0
   20 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.3 0.0 0:03.86 kworker/0:1
   40 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.3 0.0 0:01.36 kworker/u:3
 1045 root 20 0 102m 54m 9184 S 0.3 5.4 0:10.33 Xorg
 1781 test 20 0 20512 1428 1428 S 0.3 0.1 0:02.72 gvfs-afc-volume
12103 root 20 0 2832 1160 872 R 0.3 0.1 0:00.02 top
    1 root 20 0 3504 1312 1020 S 0.0 0.1 0:01.38 init
    2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd

The aptitude process state not always "S" it's sometimes "R".

Please fix this problem! If you need more details I'm glad to help you.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: aptitude 0.6.5-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-19.30-generic-pae 3.2.11
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-19-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 1.94.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Mar 20 20:05:51 2012
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Beta i386 (20120301)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: aptitude
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[totya (totya)]

Here's the strace output. I've compressed with "bzip2 -9".

[totya (totya)]

I run aptitude -d and aptitude without -d to show you the difference how much time
needed to finish the job in the two cases:

root@penge:~# apt-get clean
root@penge:~# time aptitude -y -d install vim
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  vim vim-runtime{a}
0 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 6,872 kB of archives. After unpacking 24.8 MB will be used.
Get: 1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main vim-runtime all 2:7.3.429-2ubuntu2 [5,893 kB]
Get: 2 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main vim i386 2:7.3.429-2ubuntu2 [979 kB]
Fetched 6,872 kB in 11s (621 kB/s)
E: Failed to write temporary StateFile /var/lib/apt/extended_states.tmp

real 10m40.767s
user 3m10.120s
sys 3m13.456s

root@penge:~# apt-get clean
root@penge:~# time aptitude -y install vim
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  vim vim-runtime{a}
0 packages upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 6,872 kB of archives. After unpacking 24.8 MB will be used.
Get: 1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main vim-runtime all 2:7.3.429-2ubuntu2 [5,893 kB]
Get: 2 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main vim i386 2:7.3.429-2ubuntu2 [979 kB]
Fetched 6,872 kB in 10s (682 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package vim-runtime.
(Reading database ... 153837 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking vim-runtime (from .../vim-runtime_2%3a7.3.429-2ubuntu2_all.deb) ...
Adding 'diversion of /usr/share/vim/vim73/doc/help.txt to /usr/share/vim/vim73/doc/help.txt.vim-tiny by vim-runtime'
Adding 'diversion of /usr/share/vim/vim73/doc/tags to /usr/share/vim/vim73/doc/tags.vim-tiny by vim-runtime'
Selecting previously unselected package vim.
Unpacking vim (from .../vim_2%3a7.3.429-2ubuntu2_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up vim-runtime (2:7.3.429-2ubuntu2) ...
Processing /usr/share/vim/addons/doc
Setting up vim (2:7.3.429-2ubuntu2) ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/vim.basic to provide /usr/bin/vim (vim) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/vim.basic to provide /usr/bin/vimdiff (vimdiff) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/vim.basic to provide /usr/bin/rvim (rvim) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/vim.basic to provide /usr/bin/rview (rview) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/vim.basic to provide /usr/bin/vi (vi) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/vim.basic to provide /usr/bin/view (view) in auto mode.
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/vim.basic to provide /usr/bin/ex (ex) in auto mode.

real 0m19.450s
user 0m6.364s
sys 0m2.172s

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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