postrm fails when syslinux-themes-debian is removed after extlinux has been removed

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

I noticed this above
 unetbootin: Remove
 unetbootin-translations: Remove

I just installed unetbootin on my system shortly before it happened. Also at the same time a deb conf dialog box would appear and disappear rapidly. happend about 15 times. Other installs at same time were Virtual USB Analyzer and MediaTomb.
Then it happened again after I restored a purchase.

---
Ubuntu Bug Squad volunteer triager
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

I also had unetbootin installed and removed shortly before. The autoremove wanted to remove both this package and unetbootin-translations

Uninstalled unetbootin and reinstalled again. trying to see if unetbootin would startup without having to go into the terminal - like it used to awhile ago.

This bug was fixed in the package syslinux-themes-debian - 12-3ubuntu1

---------------
syslinux-themes-debian (12-3ubuntu1) vivid; urgency=medium

  * Check that extlinux-update exists before trying to run it in the postrm
    since it may already have been removed (Closes: #748618, LP: #1042511).
 -- Robie Basak <email address hidden> Thu, 09 Apr 2015 11:17:17 +0100

Hello messajunior, or anyone else affected,

Accepted syslinux-themes-debian into trusty-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/syslinux-themes-debian/12-3ubuntu0.14.04.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Hello messajunior, or anyone else affected,

Accepted syslinux-themes-debian into utopic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/syslinux-themes-debian/12-3ubuntu0.14.10.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Verified fixed in both trusty-proposed and utopic-proposed. For each release I verified that I could see the failure, then verified that an upgrade to syslinux-themes-debian in -proposed would fix the issue, and then verified that a fresh install of syslinux-themes-debian from -proposed also fixes the issue.

I discovered that the bug is a little harder to trigger on Utopic because extlinux doesn't supply /etc/default/extlinux any more, so it generally also isn't present if extlinux is removed after upgrade to Utopic. However, although unlikely I think a user could still end up with a file there (eg. if extlinux was removed while the system was still on Trusty and never purged since), so I worked around this in testing with:

echo "EXTLINUX_THEME=debian"|sudo tee --append /etc/default/extlinux

This reproduced the problem on Utopic and so I was able to verify that the package in utopic-proposed does fix the issue.

The verification of the Stable Release Update for syslinux-themes-debian has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

This bug was fixed in the package syslinux-themes-debian - 12-3ubuntu0.14.10.1

---------------
syslinux-themes-debian (12-3ubuntu0.14.10.1) utopic; urgency=medium

  * Check that extlinux-update exists before trying to run it in the postrm
    since it may already have been removed (Closes: #748618, LP: #1042511).
 -- Robie Basak <email address hidden> Thu, 09 Apr 2015 11:38:43 +0100

This bug was fixed in the package syslinux-themes-debian - 12-3ubuntu0.14.04.1

---------------
syslinux-themes-debian (12-3ubuntu0.14.04.1) trusty; urgency=medium

  * Check that extlinux-update exists before trying to run it in the postrm
    since it may already have been removed (Closes: #748618, LP: #1042511).
 -- Robie Basak <email address hidden> Thu, 09 Apr 2015 11:37:20 +0100

Thanks for your time and efforts.
As I still have to improve my' linux ways of live', I realy appreciate your
help and the help off an invisible (at least for me) community off poeple
who wants to improve the world on the only good way for all off us.

Thousands Thanks a lot.

My best Regards

2015-04-22 18:15 GMT+02:00 Chris J Arges <email address hidden>:

> The verification of the Stable Release Update for syslinux-themes-debian
> has completed successfully and the package has now been released to
> -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being
> unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In
> the event that you encounter a regression using the package from
> -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report
> regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1386598).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1042511
>
> Title:
> postrm fails when syslinux-themes-debian is removed after extlinux has
> been removed
>
> Status in syslinux-themes-debian package in Ubuntu:
> Fix Released
> Status in syslinux-themes-debian source package in Trusty:
> Fix Released
> Status in syslinux-themes-debian source package in Utopic:
> Fix Released
> Status in syslinux-themes-debian package in Debian:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> [Impact]
>
> Leads to autoremove failing on distribution upgrade. If this happens
> then users get told that "A fatal error occurred" during distribution
> upgrade. Ultimately it's not so bad because it's at the final
> autoremove step and this can just be repeated, but it is still bad
> that this bug causes the distribution upgrade to fail if this package
> is present.
>
> [Development Fix]
>
> Test for extlinux-update explicitly before attempting to run it. No
> update to extlinux is needed if it is no longer installed anyway.
>
> [Stable Fix]
>
> Same as development fix.
>
> [Test Case]
>
> apt-get install extlinux syslinux-themes-debian
> dpkg -r extlinux
> dpkg -r syslinux-themes-debian
>
> Expected result: success
>
> Actual result: failure on the final command:
>
> Removing syslinux-themes-debian (12-3) ...
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/syslinux-themes-debian.postrm: 15:
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/syslinux-themes-debian.postrm: extlinux-update: not found
> dpkg: error processing package syslinux-themes-debian (--remove):
> subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 127
> Errors were encountered while processing:
> syslinux-themes-debian
>
> [Regression Potential]
>
> I change the postrm maintainer script in this fix. The bug caused it
> to possibly fail before. The worst that can happen is that the postrm
> will fail in some other way.
>
> [Original Description]
>
> I'dont know. I was trying to create a bootable usb with a Ubuntu 12.04
> 64's iso.
>
> ProblemType: Package
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
> Package: syslinux-themes-debian (not installed)
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-10.10-generic 3.5.1
> Uname: Linux 3.5.0-10-generic x86_64
> App...