package doc-base 0.10.3 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127

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

Log extract:

Processing triggers for doc-base ...
/usr/bin/perl: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/perl5/auto/UUID/UUID.so: undefined symbol: Perl_xs_apiversion_bootcheck
dpkg: error processing doc-base (--unpack):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127

So this happens when perl/perl-modules are unpacked, but not configured yet, and then some dpkg trigger pokes doc-base.

I tried various scenarios with having perl 5.14 unpacked but not configured, and then unpacking, triggering and/or installing doc-base and/or nano. I do get the symbol lookup error plenty of times, but always with

         *******************************************************************
         It seems install-docs is not fully functional at the moment,
         and it will try to recover from the error next time it is called.
         Please run `install-docs --install-changed' command
         manually after the upgrade process is finished.
         "*******************************************************************

and the exit code is 0.

But right now I can't make too much sense of the log anyway:

Processing triggers for doc-base ...
/usr/bin/perl: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/perl5/auto/UUID/UUID.so: undefined symbol: Perl_xs_apiversion_bootcheck
dpkg: error processing doc-base (--unpack):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127
Errors were encountered while processing:
 doc-base

The context shows that at that time perl* are at 5.14/unpacked, but doc-base hasn't been touched anywhere yet. It never said "unpacking doc-base ..." for example, so the "dpkg: error processing doc-base (--unpack)" doesn't make sense, especially since unpack doesn't run postinst scripts.

Was this an upgrade from oneiric, or an intra-precise upgrade?

I think the problem is that perl-base has "Breaks: doc-base (<< 0.10.3)", but that will allow an unpacked but unconfigured perl 5.14 together with doc-base 0.10.2, so any trigger will break doc-base.

... so I think we need to turn the Breaks: into a Conflicts:.

Turns out that this was already reported in Debian, and fixed in perl 5.14.2-6. I synced the package now.

 perl (5.14.2-6) unstable; urgency=low
 .
   [ Niko Tyni ]
   * debian/rules: correctly handle subject line wraps in patch headers.
 .
   [ Dominic Hargreaves ]
   * Add versioned Conflicts on update-inetd (<< 4.41) (Closes: #649177)
   * Conflict on rather than Break doc-base (<< 0.10.3); aptitude
     runs doc-base triggers before the new version has been unpacked
   * Update Lintian override for perl-module-uses-perl4-libs-without-dep
     to reflect new path to CGI.pm
   * Disable various tests which fail on GNU/Hurd (see #648623)