Installer removes packages, but fails to update package database

[Jbyvosges]

There is a set of packages that are installed on the livecd that get removed during installation. Sometimes the package database fails to be updated to reflect that the packages were removed, so while the files are gone, the package database still shows the package as being installed.

This problem can manifest itself when users install gparted, which depends on libgtkmm-2.4.so.1. The package database things this library is already installed, but in fact, the files were removed during installation, so gparted can not load the library. Other packages have been affected as well, though the problem is difficult to reproduce. It may require getting an error during the grub installation phase.

[Curtis Gedak (gedakc)]

GParted does not yet compile with the GNOME 3 libraries.

As a work around you might try installing the missing library "libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a".

[Jbyvosges (j-lbarbry)]

I reinstalled the library libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a and, marvellous , Gparted works.
Thanks to you.

[intropedro (intropedro2)]

I have reinstalled the package as jbyvosges says and it works:

>> sudo apt-get install --reinstall libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Orion Cooper (apasanka)]

Thank you, Jbyvosges, for reporting this, and Curtis Gedak, for the solution. I had this problem also, and the fix worked for me. gparted would not open, despite uninstalling and reinstalling many times.

I had libgtk-2.4-1c2a already installed, and used Synaptic Package Manager to reinstall it. After this, gparted worked.

Same setup as the initial poster:

Ubuntu 11.10 AMD64
libgtkmm 3.2.0-0ubuntu1
libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a : 1:2.24.2-1
gparted 0.8.1-1ubuntu4

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Did you upgrade to precise, or was this a clean install? I can't see how this could happen since libgtk-2.4-1c2a is listed as a dependency of gparted, so it must be installed for gparted to be installed.

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

I am unable to reproduce this on either a clean install of precise, or after upgrading from oneiric. Is anyone still experiencing this?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Ian Higginson (xeriouxi)]

I just came across this bug on a fresh install of 12.04 which was fully updated after installation . I installed 12.04 via a USB flash drive on my parents machine so I wonder if using this installation method (as opposed to installing via a CD/DVD) is the reason why this is happening?

[Phillip Susi (psusi)]

Can you repeat the installation and still get the error?

This seems to be some sort of hard to reproduce bug in the installer, not gparted. I have seen it happen once or twice where dpkg *thinks* a package is installed, but in fact, it is not. It seems to happen to packages that are installed in the livecd, then removed during installation to the hard drive. This includes gparted and this library, but I have seen it happen with others as well. When it happens, it looks like the installer succeeded in removing the package, but failed to update the dpkg database to show that it was removed. The problem is that every time I try to reproduce it, it works properly.

[Marshall Davis (mpdavis73)]

After reading your post, Phillip, not sure if this will give you any more info, but:

Using 12.10 beta 1 desktop amd64
Used unetbootin to write to USB
Machine has UEFI and SSD - fresh install
Install failed during grub-efi install (already a reported and known issue)
Mounted and chrooted into new installation to fix grub efi installation
After reboot, no gparted in dash, so I opened terminal, sudo -s, received similar output to below:

root@ubuwks:~# gparted
The program 'gparted' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
apt-get install gparted
root@ubuwks:~# apt-get install gparted
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
gparted is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.

At this point, I tried
which gparted
with no result,
find / -name gparted
showed a few language and doc files in /usr/share
Did apt-get update, apt-get upgrade
Removed and reinstalled gparted, then received:
root@ubuwks:~# gparted
/usr/sbin/gpartedbin: error while loading shared libraries: libgtkmm-2.4.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Tried:
root@ubuwks:~# apt-get install libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.

Used:
root@ubuwks:~# aptitude reinstall libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a
The following packages will be REINSTALLED:
  libgtkmm-2.4-1c2a
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.

Gparted now works and shows in dash

[Troy Thompson (pcguy74)]

I had the exact same results as Marshall and tried several of the things he did. I had the grub error as expected and my machine also has SSD and was installing from a flash drive. I was installing the 64bit version of Ubuntu.

Thanks to his additional feedback I was able to solve the problem in the same method he did. I was able to duplicate this error sequence twice due to unplanned fresh installs recently.

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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