Re: post-installation script errors

[Peter Nome <peter@cogweb.net>]

I very much appreciate the replies I got from Goswin and Chris -- sorry for 
troubling the list with off-topic issues; I thought this was for general Debian 
mentoring and felt unusually badly in need of some generic high-level expertise. 

Just for the record, my problems with the postinstall scripts appear to have 
nothing to do with any problems in Debian; this machine has a hardware problem that 
slowly, over the course of some hours, corrupts everything. What a relief, eh?

Even if the suggestions I received didn't allow me to solve the problem at the 
software level (a lost cause anyway), they taught me several useful things about 
Debian.

Cheers,
Peter

Quoting Goswin von Brederlow <brederlo@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de>:

> Peter Nome <peter@cogweb.net> writes:
> 
> > On a woody base install, I'm getting lots of post-installation script
> errors, like this:
> > 
> > # dpkg -i sed_3.02-8_i386.deb
> > (Reading database ... 6623 files and directories currently installed.)
> > Preparing to replace sed 3.02-8 (using sed_3.02-8_i386.deb) ...
> > /var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.prerm: line 9:   653 Segmentation fault     
> install-info --quiet --remove sed
> > dpkg: warning - old pre-removal script returned error exit status 139
> > dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ...
> > dpkg: ... it looks like that went OK.
> > Unpacking replacement sed ...
> > Setting up sed (3.02-8) ...
> > /var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.postinst: line 11:   662 Segmentation fault     
> install-info --quiet --section "General commands" "General commands"
> /usr/share/info/sed.info
> > dpkg: error processing sed (--install):
> >  subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 139
> > Errors were encountered while processing:
> >  sed
> 
> Looks like your install-info is busted.
>  
> > If I comment out the line starting "install-info" in
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.postinst I can complete the configuration with apt-get
> --reinstall install sed (or sometimes dpkg --configure sed). However, I get
> this on lots of packages. What's going on? 
> > 
> > Strace below. Please cc: me. I'd really appreciate suggestions and
> insights; I'm stumped.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Peter
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > stat64("/var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.postinst", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755,
> st_size=287, ...}) = 0
> > fork()                                  = 624
> > rt_sigaction(SIGQUIT, {SIG_IGN}, {SIG_DFL}, 8) = 0
> > rt_sigaction(SIGINT, {SIG_IGN}, {SIG_DFL}, 8) = 0
> > waitpid(624, /var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.postinst: line 11:   625 Segmentation
> fault      install-info --quiet --section "General commands" "General
> commands" /usr/share/info/sed.info
> > [WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 139], 0) = 624
> > --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) ---
> > write(2, "dpkg: error processing sed (--in"..., 108dpkg: error processing
> sed (--install):
> >  subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 139
> > ) = 108
> > rt_sigaction(SIGQUIT, {SIG_DFL}, NULL, 8) = 0
> > rt_sigaction(SIGINT, {SIG_DFL}, NULL, 8) = 0
> 
> This strace doesn't help at all.
> 
> You have to strace the install-info call and you should probably file
> this as bug against install-info.
> 
> MfG
>         Goswin
>