Wrong dependency causes ImportError with apturl

[Urop]

When I type apturl on the command line, or if I try to launch an apturl link from in firefox (eg to get ubuntu 64 bit flash player: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/completion/?installer=Flash_Player_11_for_Ubuntu_%28apt%29) then nothing happens (apturl crashes) and I get the following output:

(apturl-gtk:32258): Gtk-WARNING **: Unknown property: GtkDialog.has-separator
ERROR:root:importing aptdaemon
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/AptUrl/gtk/backend/__init__.py", line 48, in get_backend
    from InstallBackendAptdaemon import InstallBackendAptdaemon
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/AptUrl/gtk/backend/InstallBackendAptdaemon.py", line 10, in <module>
    from UpdateManager.backend import InstallBackend
ImportError: No module named backend
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/apturl-gtk", line 44, in <module>
    ui = GtkUI()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/AptUrl/gtk/GtkUI.py", line 30, in __init__
    self.backend = get_backend(self.dia)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/AptUrl/gtk/backend/__init__.py", line 56, in get_backend
    from InstallBackendSynaptic import InstallBackendSynaptic
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/AptUrl/gtk/backend/InstallBackendSynaptic.py", line 12, in <module>
    from UpdateManager.backend import InstallBackend
ImportError: No module named backend

I have noticed that this message also appears in comment #10 of bug 750602: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/750602/comments/10

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
Package: apturl 0.5.1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-14.23-generic 3.0.9
Uname: Linux 3.0.0-14-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Dec 21 15:09:05 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: apturl
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-17 (64 days ago)

[Geoffrey Kuhn (kuhn-geoff)]

You are having trouble with packages, try the following.

$ sudo apt-get remove --purge --force apturl-common

$ sudo apt-get install apturl-common

[Urop (urop)]

I tried:

$ sudo apt-get remove --purge --force apturl-common

but was told

E: Command line option --force is not understood

so I tried again, but without that option:

$ sudo apt-get remove --purge apturl-common
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED
  apturl* apturl-common* ubufox* xul-ext-ubufox*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 725 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
(Reading database ... 207401 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing ubufox ...
Removing xul-ext-ubufox ...
Purging configuration files for xul-ext-ubufox ...
Removing apturl ...
Removing apturl-common ...
Purging configuration files for apturl-common ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for gconf2 ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...

Then I reinstalled:

$sudo apt-get install apturl-common
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following NEW packages will be installed
  apturl-common
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/11.5 kB of archives.
After this operation, 184 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Selecting previously deselected package apturl-common.
(Reading database ... 207323 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking apturl-common (from .../apturl-common_0.5.1ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up apturl-common (0.5.1ubuntu1) ...

Then I autoremoved as suggested:

$ sudo apt-get autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 299 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
(Reading database ... 207349 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing gir1.2-webkit-3.0 ...

Then I tried:

$ apturl
Please install apturl-gtk or apturl-kde.

There is no such package as apturl-gtk so I couldn't do what it suggested. (Another bug I suppose.) But there is a package called apturl, which was removed earlier, so I installed that instead:

$ sudo apt-get install apturl
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  gir1.2-webkit-3.0
The following NEW packages will be installed
  apturl gir1.2-webkit-3.0
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 58.9 kB/68.0 kB of archives.
After this operation, 463 kB of additional disk space w...

[Urop (urop)]

By the way, I forgot to add that I can reproduce this across two computers - both 64bit Ubuntu Oneric installs.

[volinthius (volinthius)]

I had this problem as well. Seems that by default only update-manager-core is installed and the backend module in UpdateManager is provided by update-manager. So the problem lies in dependencies of some package. However once the correct package is installed bug #873114 emerges.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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