Comment 8 for bug 12461

(In reply to comment #7)
> (In reply to comment #6)
> > The problem persists despite deleting the directory. The problem persists
> > despite the method used to invoke synaptic (as sudo -s or through the panel's
> menu).
> > The permissions of my root's home directory are
> > drwxr-xr-x 17 root root 4.0K Feb 4 19:46 root
> >
> > I know I removed the directory properly because on start up synaptic warned me
> > about running it frequently for updates.
> >
> > The permissions of the synaptic directory are
> > drwx------ 2 root root 4.0K Feb 4 19:47 .synaptic
> >
> > What a strange bug.
>
> Indeed! What machine do you run synaptic on? Is it a i386 or some other
> architecture? What do you see if you mointor the file
> /root/.synaptic/perferences when locking/unlocking.
>
> Thanks,
> Michael
>
>

I run synaptic on 686-smp with the specific kernel 2.6.9-1-686-smp version
2.6.9-11 (2.6.10 hasn't been stable). Some form of pentium 4 with hyperthreading.

I found something interesting monitoring preferences.
Locking a package definitely updates my preferences file. Unlocking a package
doesn't.
However the updates to the preferences file aren't what expected:
0. Removed the preferences file.
1. I locked evolution (preferences was created with evolution), then restarted
the program.
2. I opened up the program and unlocked evolution and the evolution
locked/installed icon when to a regular installed one (preferences file remained
unchanged). After each of these lock settings changes "Building dependency tree"
can be seen in the status bar.
3. I locked evolution-webcal assuming it would update the prefs file
appropriately hopefully remove the evolution entry but leave me with a locked
webcal only. Instead, the preferences file was updated with both evolution and
webcal locked.
4. The display on synaptic said evolution was unlocked and that webcal was locked.
5. Restarting the program shows them both locked.

My file system is ext3 and I have a separate partition for /boot (not sure if
that makes a difference). I also sym linked my /var/cache/apt/archives to a
different directory on another partition. Those are the only oddities.

It's like the code to remove the locked entry from the preferences file never
executes but the program sets the correctly locked flags in memory.