Bug#461349: (upgrade stalls w/100% CPU ... ) / Merge with #455731?

["A. Costa" <agcosta@gis.net>]

I used 'dpkg' to downgrade from 'cupsys' v1.3.5-1 to v1.3.4-4, but the
downgrade produced the same bug, (100% CPU unkillable 'index++'
stall).  Which implies 'cupsys' is not the problem.

During an upgrade of a couple hundred packages the other night, the same
bug occurred with other packages, such as:

	slib (3a5-3)
	maint-guide (1.2.12)
	gimp-help-en (2.4.0-2)

...and others.  It's hard to imagine how 'cupsys' could cause that.
Perhaps this bug's 'severity' should be worse than 'important'.  It
breaks 'apt-get' too, since after the error 'apt-get' fails and
suggests running 'dpkg --configure -a' which also fails.  (Plain 'dpkg'
still works.)

More online searching revealed this harmless-looking bug:

	#455731 dhelp cron failed
	http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=455731

I tried the '/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/dhelp.rb' patch suggested there, (see
attached .diff), and it helped (in an odd way):

	% dpkg -i cupsys_1.3.5-1_i386.deb
	{ ...etc... }
	Preparing to replace cupsys 1.3.4-4 (using .../cupsys_1.3.5-1_i386.deb) ...
	Stopping Common Unix Printing System: cupsd.
	Unpacking replacement cupsys ...
	Setting up cupsys (1.3.5-1) ...
	Dhelp::IndexerError: Couldn't index /var/lib/doc-base/documents/cupsys using /usr/bin/index++ --config-file /usr/share/dhelp/swish++.conf --index-file /var/lib/dhelp/documents.index --incremental - (/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/dhelp.rb:368:in `index'
	/usr/sbin/dhelp_parse:112:in `main'
	/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/commandline/application.rb:250:in `run'
	/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/commandline/application.rb:269:in `__set_auto_run'
	/usr/sbin/dhelp_parse:93)
	Starting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd.

...that is the patch is inapplicable, buggy, or maybe I typed it in
wrong, and it breaks '/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/dhelp.rb'; but that breakage
prevents the 100% CPU unkillable process.  After the patch 'dpkg
--configure -a' worked, which fixed 'apt-get'.  Some document index
aren't updated, but that's the lesser of two evils.

Bugs #46139 & #455731 seem somehow related; should they be merged?  If not,
to what other package might this bug belong?

HTH...



--- /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/dhelp.rb	2007-12-06 12:06:00.000000000 -0500
+++ /tmp/1.8/dhelp.rb	2008-01-20 01:56:56.000000000 -0500
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@
     end
 
     def files
-      @files.strip.split(/\s+/)
+      @files.to_s.strip.split(/\s+/)
     end
   end
 
@@ -384,6 +384,7 @@
       @pool.each do |doc|
         doc.formats.each do |format|
           next unless SUPPORTED_FORMATS.include? format.format.downcase
+	  puts "processing files for #{doc.document}'s format #{format.format}"
           format.files.each do |glob|
             # Dirnames can be globs too. There will also be duplicates
             # (different formats, same doc), hence the set