Bug#839546: apt upgrade wants to install packages that apt autoremove will remove

[Olly Betts <olly@survex.com>]

On Sat, Oct 01, 2016 at 11:15:28PM +0300, Sami Liedes wrote:
> apt upgrade lists some packages as new packages that will be
> installed, but at the same time lists those packages as "automatically
> installed and no longer required".
[...]
> Note that all of the NEW packages that will be installed are also in
> the autoremoveable list (contrary to what apt says, those packages are
> not yet installed).

I'm seeing what appears to be the same problem, so this bug still seems
to be present:

root@gemse:~# apt upgrade
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libqt6network6t64 libqt6opengl6t64 libqt6openglwidgets6t64 libqt6xml6t64
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.

Installing dependencies:
  libqt6network6t64 libqt6opengl6t64 libqt6openglwidgets6t64 libqt6xml6t64

Not upgrading:
  htmldoc libcanberra-pulse libnode-dev libnode109 nodejs octave octave-common octave-dev

Summary:
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 4, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 8
  Download size: 1,201 kB
  Space needed: 4,552 kB / 1,749 GB available

Continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.
root@gemse:~# apt autoremove
Summary:                        
  Upgrading: 0, Installing: 0, Removing: 0, Not Upgrading: 8
root@gemse:~# apt --version
apt 2.9.2 (amd64)

If there's stuff I can usefully prod to help debug what's causing this
please let me know.

Cheers,
    Olly