Bug#154223: apt: apt-get upgrade segfaults at apt-get.cc:361

[Frederic Briere <fbriere@abacom.com>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.5.4
Severity: important

(It's a subtle bug, but it still segfaults, so I'm filing it as
important.)

  [fbriere] k7:~ $ sudo apt-get upgrade
  Reading Package Lists... Done
  Building Dependency Tree... Done
  Segmentation fault


After doing what I could with gdb (it doesn't seem to like C++ too
much), I determined that the segfault occured at apt-get.cc:361.  Turns
out I is NULL there.

Digging further, I went back to apt-get.cc:1225, in DoUpgrade.  After
calling OpenForInstall on Cache, the first three elements (Cache[0..2])
are NULLs.  The other 13000-something are okay.

I can't tell whether the problem is with "apt-get update" writing junk
in the cache, or with "apt-get upgrade" not reading it properly, but
there we are.

I tried flushing /var/lib/apt and /var/cache/apt, but to no avail.
(Actually, it's not true; I've had it work once or twice.  Then I do it
again, and it fails.  Don't ask me why.)

I've taken backups of both directories, in case this bugs goes away with
the next daily update.  About 10MiB in total; I'd be glad to provide
them if you wish to investigate.


-- System Information
Debian Release: 3.0
Kernel Version: Linux k7 2.4.18 #1 Thu Jul 4 15:58:11 EDT 2002 i686 unknown

Versions of the packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6          2.2.5-6        GNU C Library: Shared libraries and Timezone
ii  libstdc++2.10- 2.95.4-7       The GNU stdc++ library


-- 
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to deity-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster@lists.debian.org