package libpam-modules 1.1.3-8ubuntu3 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: pre-dependency problem - not installing libpam-modules:amd64

[Ed Falat]

Multiple errors after upgrading from 12.10 to 13.10. Lubuntu, after announcing a group of error reports, allowed login, but no menu panel appears. A right click exposes a menu (openbox?) that allows an instance of lxterminal, but, little else. Had to start web browser from command line. Did a "wajig install lxde" to get a menu.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: libpam-modules
Uname: Linux 3.13.1-031301-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Feb 28 13:50:51 2014
DuplicateSignature: package:libpam-modules:1.1.3-8ubuntu3:ErrorMessage: pre-dependency problem - not installing libpam-modules:amd64
ErrorMessage: ErrorMessage: pre-dependency problem - not installing libpam-modules:amd64
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: pam
Title: package libpam-modules 1.1.3-8ubuntu3 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: pre-dependency problem - not installing libpam-modules:amd64
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to saucy on 2014-02-28 (6 days ago)

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

From the logs, the root of this error is:

Stopped glibc upgrade. Please retry the upgrade after you have
checked or stopped services by hand.
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.17-93ubuntu4_i386.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1

We really shouldn't be asking users this debconf question as part of a foreign libc upgrade. Triaging as "low", however, since the problem occurred only because you answered the question inconsistently for libc6:amd64 vs. libc6:i386, and in the common case users will not be shown this question at all.

[Ed Falat (efalat)]

We can close this one.

 I had to add apt-build last year to use a package that was not even in experimental repositories. I began to get errors about "bin-i386/Packages" not found on updates/upgrades. I was surprised to see that libc6 was installing both an AMD64 and and i386 version.

I solved the dist-upgrade problem by adding to /var/cache/apt-build/repository/dists/apt-build/main/ a link
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Jan 19 2013 binary-amd64 -> ../../..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 8 Mar 7 19:49 binary-i386 -> ../../..

This allowed update-manager to complete and it now boots and logs in quietly. The only very low priority annoyance is a warning on updates about duplicate repositories:

Reading package lists... Done
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://linux.dropbox.com/ubuntu/ saucy/main amd64 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/linux.dropbox.com_ubuntu_dists_saucy_main_binary-amd64_Packages)
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://linux.dropbox.com/ubuntu/ saucy/main i386 Packages
(/var/lib/apt/lists/linux.dropbox.com_ubuntu_dists_saucy_main_binary-i386_Packages)
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main amd64 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/dl.google.com_linux_chrome_deb_dists_stable_main_binary-amd$
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main i386 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/dl.google.com_linux_chrome_deb_dists_stable_main_binary-i386$

Definitely not a show stopper.