"The installation or removal of a software package failed." is not useful

Bug #1118210 reported by Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 πŸ¦„
18
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
update-manager (Ubuntu)
Triaged
High
Unassigned

Bug Description

update-manager 1:0.180, Ubuntu Raring

Did my usual updates on raring this morning. After update manager finished I am left with a dialog which has the text "The installation or removal of a software package failed" and a settings and ok button. I am not informed what the error is, how I can discover what the error is, nor how to report it or fix it. This message seems pretty much unhelpful to me as a user. :)

Attached my dpkg.log and a screenshot..

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates#After_installing>: "If there are any errors while installing the updates, then the error tracker should generate its own alert (bug 1152578). Therefore, Software Updater should not duplicate the error presentation itself."

Revision history for this message
Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 πŸ¦„ (popey) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 πŸ¦„ (popey) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

Here is the error:

Preparing to replace linux-image-3.8.0-4-generic 3.8.0-4.8 (using .../linux-image-3.8.0-4-generic_3.8.0-4.9_amd64.deb) ...
Done.
Unpacking replacement linux-image-3.8.0-4-generic ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-3.8.0-4-generic_3.8.0-4.9_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/lib/modules/3.8.0-4-generic/kernel/drivers/ata/ahci_platform.ko', which is also in package linux-image-extra-3.8.0-4-generic 3.8.0-4.8
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)

Changed in update-manager (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
Changed in update-manager (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :
Changed in update-manager (Ubuntu):
assignee: Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) → nobody
status: Confirmed → Triaged
description: updated
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