package-data-downloader tries to remove non-existant file, failing with Errno 2

[Doug Arnold]

In Ubuntu 14.10, installations of various packages fail due to package-data-downloader trying to remove a file that does not exist. See

  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/msttcorefonts/+bug/1354709

for examples when trying to install the msttcorefonts package (see bug descriptions) and when trying to install the wine-browser-installer package (see comments #10 and #11)

A very simple patch is to check if the file exists before calling os.remove to remove it. Specifically, replace line 260 of /usr/lib/update-notifier/package-data-downloader:

                         os.remove(f)

with the two lines

                         if os.path.exists(dest_file):
                            os.remove(f)

With this change I can install wine-browser-installer without error. Otherwise I cannot.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
Package: update-notifier 3.157
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.16.0-30.40-generic 3.16.7-ckt3
Uname: Linux 3.16.0-30-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8.2
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: XFCE
Date: Tue Feb 24 08:59:59 2015
SourcePackage: update-notifier
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to utopic on 2015-02-21 (2 days ago)

[Doug Arnold (dnarnold)]

I apologize for a typo in the patch in my bug description. The additional lines should, of course, be

                          if os.path.exists(f):
                              os.remove(f):

("f" not "dest_file").

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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