package gcc 4:4.4.4-1ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: package gcc is already installed and configured

[Daniel Waller]

Binary package hint: dpkg

1)
Description: Ubuntu maverick (development branch)
Release: 10.10 (Netbook Remix)

2)
daniel@daniel-netbook10:~$ apt-cache policy gcc
gcc:
  Installed: 4:4.4.4-1ubuntu2
  Candidate: 4:4.4.4-1ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 4:4.4.4-1ubuntu2 0
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: gcc 4:4.4.4-1ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-6.9-generic 2.6.35-rc3
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-6-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Jul 11 16:39:32 2010
ErrorMessage: package gcc is already installed and configured
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Netbook 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Alpha i386 (20100630.1)
SourcePackage: dpkg
Title: package gcc 4:4.4.4-1ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: package gcc is already installed and configured

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Thanks for your report.

Could you please attach the files /var/log/apt/history.log and /var/log/dpkg.log to this report.
Could you please also describe with as much details as possible what happened until this error popup.

Thanks in advance.

[Daniel Waller (daniel-diewallers)]

I think I got that error during an upgrade (sudo apt-get upgrade)..but i'm not entirely sure cause it's been more than an hour ago...sry if that's no help :S

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

It seems that the installation of the broadcom driver (bcmwl-kernel-source) on 2010-07-11 at 16:34:37 has been interrupted. What happened and what have you done at this time ? Did your system or installation hung ? Did you kill a process, hard reboot, ... ?

[Daniel Waller (daniel-diewallers)]

actually yes it froze the system so I did a hard reboot...I tried it again and then it worked.

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Thanks. I cannot reproduce it but I think that the problem is something like:
- A package and its predependency set the same trigger. It is set once for the predependency.
- The package and the predeps are unpacked
- The predeps are configured (but the trigger is not activated since is waiting for the main package to configure)
- The package is configured but the installation is suddenly interrupted (and here is the point that I cannot reproduce being unable to find how and exactly when it must be interrupted) and the trigger is not executed.
- The installation reach a unstable state where dpkg (or apt) thinks that the predep is correctly installed but the trigger was not executed.
- On the next installation dpkg (or apt) tries to configure a package (the predep) already marked as configured.