package cups-pdf 2.4.6-3ubuntu3 failed to install/upgrade:

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Marking confirmed as I can reproduce it here.

This slouch of upgrade bugs is fairly interesting, given how postinst includes provision for succeeding even if restarting the daemon failed (such as when it is already stopped). I'm wondering if the recent Ubuntu changes introduced some regression?

The fix is now on it way to Gutsy (0ubuntu4). It can take up to after the Tribe 5 release on Thursday but it can already get into Tribe 5.

Packages for immediate testing here:

http://www.linux-foundation.org/~till/tmp/ubuntu/gutsy/cups-pdf/

I think that silently skipping queue manipulation if the daemon is not running can only lead into what the user would perceive as a failed installation. Wouldn't it be better if we first try to start the daemon, if it's not running?

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu4) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/postinst, debian/prerm: Check, create, or remove PDF queues only
    if the CUPS daemon is running, otherwise go on silently (LP: #133743).

 -- Till Kamppeter <email address hidden> Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:56:19 +0100

Martin-Éric Racine, the postinst script already tries to start CUPS at first, so the system of the original poster seems to be rather broken (misconfigured cupsd.conf or AppArmor bug in the cupsys package).

I had the same error when upgrading a vanilla feisty to gutsy today but i do had the cups services disabled from starting at boot. 3 packages including cups-pdf failed with a similar error

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu10) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/postinst: Before creating a CUPS queue wait 3 seconds to be sure
    that the CUPS daemon is listening (LP: #152293).

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu9) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/50_default_conf.patch: Withdrawn the chnage of the PDF
    destination to ~/Desktop, returned to ~/PDF, also do not let cups-pdf
    label documents with job numbers by default (see LP bugs 134682 and
    134671).
  * debian/control: Removed the versioned require on cupsys, as we have
    withdrawn the change of the PDF destination.

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu8) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/50_default_conf.patch: Use ~/Desktop as default destination
    for the PDF files so that users find them more easily (LP: #134682,
    LP: #134671)
  * debian/prerm, debian/postinst: Make any failure of CUPS command line tools
    non-fatal, to not affect the setup of cups-pdf if CUPS crashes immediately
    after being restarted by the cups-pdf setup (LP: #136449, LP: #147974).
  * debian/control: Require cupsys 1.3.2-1ubuntu2 or newer, to have
    AppArmor restrictions allowing to write into ~/Desktop.

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu7) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/control: Add explicit cupsys-client dependency, since the postinst
    needs 'lpadmin' and cupsys itself only recommends -client.
    (LP: #134453)

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu6) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/postinst: Fix invocation of "lpstat -r" (remove backticks). This
    makes the automatic setup of the PDF queue actually work again.

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu5) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/postinst: force PDF queues on localhost only; systems configured
    for remote CUPS servers are not expecting it.

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu4) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/postinst, debian/prerm: Check, create, or remove PDF queues only
    if the CUPS daemon is running, otherwise go on silently (LP: #133743).

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu3) gutsy; urgency=low

  * debian/postinst: Only set up the PDF queue, do not make it the default.
    Otherwise the PDF queue would stay the default when the first real printer
    is detected after installation and as the installation of the packages
    happens before the detection of the printers all systems will have the PDF
    queue as default.

cups-pdf (2.4.6-3ubuntu2) gutsy; urgency=low

  [ Till Kamppeter ]
  * debian/control: Updated dependencies: ghostscript, paperconf.
  * debian/postinst, debian/prerm: Create a PDF print queue when installing
    and take it down when uninstalling (LF: #82674)
  * debian/patches/10_auto_assign_ppd.patch: Make the PPD automatically
    assigned to the PDF printer by CUPS/printer setup tools
  * debian/rules: Enabled the package for applying patches by adding
    "include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/simple-patchsys.mk"

  [ Martin Pitt ]
  * Now that we use simple-patchsys.mk, make a proper patch
    debian/patches/01_mkdir_as_user.patch from the src/cups-pdf.c change in
    the last upload. Also move the default configuration changes into a patch
    50_default_conf.patch, so that the diff.gz is now free of upstream diffs.
  * debian/postinst: If paperconf fails, fall back to paper size "a4"...