Bug#939885: dpkg: unrecoverable fatal error: unknown system group 'smmsp' in statoverride file
Package: sendmail-bin
Version: 8.15.2-14~deb10u1
Severity: normal
Dear Maintainer,
Given the following commands are run on a fresh buster install:
apt install sendmail
apt install postfix
apt autoremove --purge
When I try to install any package, e.g. apt install mutt
Then I get an error:
dpkg: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
unknown system group 'smmsp' in statoverride file; the system group got removed
before the override, which is most probably a packaging bug, to recover you
can remove the override manually with dpkg-statoverride
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
This error effectively blocks the installation of any further package.
When in this state, the package sendmail-bin is removed, but not purged.
The problem goes away after running the following command:
apt purge sendmail-bin
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 10.1
APT prefers stable-updates
APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-6-cloud-amd64 (SMP w/1 CPU core)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled
Versions of packages sendmail-bin depends on:
ii debconf 1.5.71
ii libc6 2.28-10
ii libdb5.3 5.3.28+dfsg1-0.5
ii libldap-2.4-2 2.4.47+dfsg-3+deb10u1
pn liblockfile1 <none>
ii libsasl2-2 2.1.27+dfsg-1
ii libssl1.1 1.1.1c-1
ii libwrap0 7.6.q-28
ii lsb-base 10.2019051400
ii procps 2:3.3.15-2
pn sendmail-base <none>
pn sendmail-cf <none>
sendmail-bin recommends no packages.
Versions of packages sendmail-bin suggests:
ii libsasl2-modules 2.1.27+dfsg-1
ii openssl 1.1.1c-1
pn sasl2-bin <none>
pn sendmail-doc <none>
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