Bug#34174: dpkg assertion failure

[Daniel Burrows <Daniel_Burrows@brown.edu>]

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.4.1.1

  This is Debian potato.

  I just tried to install the libggi libraries and development stuff and got the
following error:

Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
3 packages not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 of archives. After unpacking 714k will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
dpkg: ../../../main/packages.c:191: process_queue: Assertion `dependtry <= 4' failed.
E: Sub-process returned an error code
Some errors occurred while unpacking. I'm going to configure the
packages that were installed. This may result in duplicate errors
or errors caused by missing dependencies. This is OK, only the errors
above this message are important. Please fix them and run [I]nstall again
Press enter to continue.

dpkg: ../../../main/packages.c:191: process_queue: Assertion `dependtry <= 4' failed.
/usr/lib/dpkg//methods/apt/install: line 72: 31150 Aborted                 $DPKG --configure -a

  I have no clue what this is, but it looks like a sanity check failed.

  The first time this happened, I got as far as:
Setting up libgii0-dev (990212-1) ...
dpkg: ../../../main/packages.c:191: process_queue: Assertion `dependtry <= 4' failed.

  Any ideas?

  Daniel Burrows

-- 
  Moths and flame.
  The glory blinds them.

             -- C. J. Cherryh, _The Dreaming Tree_