Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 20:39:45 -0500
From: Kent West <westk@acu.edu>
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: "Conflicts/Pre-Depends loop" & "APT::Force-LoopBreak"
Message-ID: <[🔎] 43602FE1.8030403@acu.edu>
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celejar@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I run a somewhat out of date installation of Testing. When trying to
> update
> some packages, apt-get fails with the following message:
>
> ---
> E: This installation run will require temporarily removing the
essential
> package e2fsprogs due to a Conflicts/Pre-Depends loop. This is often
> bad, but
> if you really want to do it, activate the APT::Force-LoopBreak
option.
> E: Internal Error, Could not early remove e2fsprogs"
> ---
>
> From 'man apt-get':
>
> ---
> Force-LoopBreak
> Never Enable this option unless you -really- know what
> you are
> doing. It per-
> mits APT to temporarily remove an essential package
to
> break a
> Conflicts/Con-
> flicts or Conflicts/Pre-Depend loop between two
essential
> packages. SUCH A
> LOOP SHOULD NEVER EXIST AND IS A GRAVE BUG. This
> option
> will work if the
> essential packages are not tar, gzip, libc, dpkg, bash
or
> anything that those
> packages depend on.
> ---
>
> I do -not- really know what I am doing :). How / where should I
> report this
> "GRAVE BUG", and how might I solve this problem? Is it safe to do a
> 'Force-
> LoopBreak' in this case?
>
> I can supply the output of 'dpkg -l' and the exact list of packages
> that I was
> attempting to install / upgrade upon request.
>
>
I've run into this on my last two installs, using an older pre-Sarge
netinstall CD, and then trying to upgrade to current Sid.
In both cases, I was able to get around the problem by creating the
file
"/etc/apt/apt.conf" and putting in it the line:
APT::Force-LoopBreak "true";
After doing my upgrade, I remove/rename that file to avoid potential
issues in the future.
I'm not sure where to file a bug report; probably against apt-get. I
believe the package "reportbug" might help in this process.
--
Kent