Unable to use debconf KDE frontend

[shaikailash]

When an update is available in Muon, sometimes it returns an error because it is not able to show the popup-windows where the user must accept/decline the terms of license. For example the JAVA package. This is a quite serious issue for newbies users, so I think it should be addressed as soon as possible by Kubuntu's developers.

The workaround is easy too, but not available to mass public. In the terminal, type:
- sudo apt-get update
- sudo apt-get upgrade
or
- sudo apt-get -f install

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: muon 1.3.1-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-30.48-generic 3.2.27
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-30-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu12
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Sep 8 18:29:47 2012
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120423)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 LANG=it_IT.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: muon
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

This functionality is supposed to work, and just this morning Muon did prompt me with a debconf prompt. (For java, coincidentally). Maybe it's a bug with the KDE debconf frontend?

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

And which bug would this be? I can't reproduce this and both Apper and Muon show me the dialogs - both use the debconf-kde library...
As far as I can see Muon embeds the lib correctly and debconf communication has been proven to work...
@reporter: Do you maybe have some details to help us solving this issue? Are you still able to reproduce it?

[shaikailash (steve-doc-brown)]

It happened just yesterday with the Java package, I cannot know if other users are affected, I have a freshly installed distro so I supposed this is a common bug. I don't know how to reproduce it, I would need a package with a license to be updated.

[lokster (lokiisyourmaster)]

I have the same problem, and after some investigation here is what I've found:
 - first, I ran "sudo dpkg-reconfigure debconf" and selected KDE as frontend.
 - then I ran the same command again, and saw this message:
"debconf: (Unable to load QtCore -- is libqtcore4-perl installed?)"
After some digging, I found the missing packages: libqtcore4-perl, libqtgui4-perl, libqt3support4-perl
Installed them, and this completely broke the updater... Now I get this error when I try to dpkg-reconfigure some package:

Can't call method "setText" on an undefined value at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Kde/Ui_DebconfWizard.pm line 144, <GEN1> line 7.

[lokster (lokiisyourmaster)]

FIXED IT!
This bug is very stupid one :)
In /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Kde/Ui_DebconfWizard.pm at line 144..147 changed

    $self->{bhelp}->setText( Qt::Application::translate( 'DebconfWizard', "Help", undef, Qt::Application::UnicodeUTF8() ) );
    $self->{bback}->setText( Qt::Application::translate( 'DebconfWizard', "< Back", undef, Qt::Application::UnicodeUTF8() ) );
    $self->{bnext}->setText( Qt::Application::translate( 'DebconfWizard', "Next >", undef, Qt::Application::UnicodeUTF8() ) );
    $self->{bcancel}->setText( Qt::Application::translate( 'DebconfWizard', "Cancel", undef, Qt::Application::UnicodeUTF8() ) );

to

    $self->{bHelp}->setText( Qt::Application::translate( 'DebconfWizard', "Help", undef, Qt::Application::UnicodeUTF8() ) );
    $self->{bBack}->setText( Qt::Application::translate( 'DebconfWizard', "< Back", undef, Qt::Application::UnicodeUTF8() ) );
    $self->{bNext}->setText( Qt::Application::translate( 'DebconfWizard', "Next >", undef, Qt::Application::UnicodeUTF8() ) );
    $self->{bCancel}->setText( Qt::Application::translate( 'DebconfWizard', "Cancel", undef, Qt::Application::UnicodeUTF8() ) );

:)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for debconf-kde (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[pdf (pdffs)]

Reporter provided feedback and a fix, this bug is still evident on 12.04 at least, and the result of encountering it is pretty serious, since APT won't function, and you either need to patch as explained here, or edit debconf manually (since you can't turn off the KDE frontend using dpkg-reconfigure, as it tries to invoke the broken frontend to do so).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Ｖ字龍(Vdragon) (vdragon)]

I can comfirm this bug in Ubuntu 12.10, and the symptoms and fix above is valid.

Since the diff seems to be just fixing camel case typos, someone please help to merge it.

[Lee MacKinnell (aussiefeld)]

the fix mentioned by lokster (lokiisyourmaster) wrote on 2012-10-31 fixed it in 13.04 beta1
this change needs to be committed

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Ah, I think the misunderstanding was that the bug was in the Qt perl frontend provided by debconf, not this c++ KDE one.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package debconf - 1.5.50ubuntu1

---------------
debconf (1.5.50ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  * Resynchronise with Debian (LP: #1047913). Remaining changes:
    - Gnome.pm: Do not show "Cancel" or "Close" buttons, to avoid breaking
      maintainer scripts.

debconf (1.5.50) unstable; urgency=low

  * KDE frontend: Work around multiple bugs in the perl code generated
    by puic4. The frontend works again. Closes: #702210
  * doc/Makefile: Avoid adding duplicated =encoding to pod files.
    Closes: #704866
  * Avoid find -perm +mode breakage caused by findutils 4.5.11,
    by instead using -perm /mode. Thanks, Oron Peled
 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Tue, 07 May 2013 13:26:38 +0100

[Chucky (lechuck)]

My system (Ubuntu Precise) is also affected !

Under precise, another bug is hiding this (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/debconf/+bug/1026568). This one appears after applying the workaround to the previous bug.