Score:-1

Ubuntu

Xubuntu: "desktop-file-utils" stopped being able to be installed

HippoMan

5/13/23, 3:58 AM

After doing some package installs, the desktop-file-utils package is now failing to be installed via apt and aptitude. This is for Xubuntu 20.04.2.

When running apt, I now always get this error:

dpkg: error processing package desktop-file-utils (--configure):
 installed desktop-file-utils package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 desktop-file-utils

I know that I can purge this package, but then quite a few of its dependencies will also be uninstalled, and my system is likely to become unusable.

I don't understand what could have caused this problem, because I don't know what I could have done to affect this package.

Is there some way to fix this other than purging desktop-file-utils and making my system unusable? Also, is there some way where I can get more detailed information about exactly how the post-installation script is failing? If so, perhaps I could debug this.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

0 + 0

package-management

xubuntu

apt

matigo

5/13/23, 4:51 AM

Are you able to `apt install --reinstall` the package?

Someone

5/13/23, 5:34 AM

@matigo That will more likely fail. My answer explains this in detail.

Bovine

5/13/23, 5:27 PM

Before doing the purge, would marking the dependencies as being manually installed prevent them from being removed with the purge? `apt-mark manual pkg1 pkg2 etc`

Score:0

Ubuntu

Someone

5/13/23, 5:31 AM

Let's fix this error step by step.

First, run force install to know the exact problem:
```
sudo apt --fix-broken install
```

Identify the error:

Errors were encountered while processing:
desktop-file-utils

Mark dependencies as manually installed to prevent them from getting removed;
```
 sudo apt-mark manual libglib2.0-0 libc6
```

Remove the post-installation files:

sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/desktop-file-utils* ~/

Purge the package:

sudo dpkg -P --force-all desktop-file-utils

Re-install the package (Optional):

sudo aptitude -f install desktop-file-utils

Explanation

As the error message states:

installed desktop-file-utils package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1

This usually implies that there are transient issues in the post-installation files.

In the first step, we executed a command that attempted to correct the mistakes.
In step three, we deleted the package's post-installation files.
We purged the package in step four to remove any configuration files.
In step five, we reinstalled the package to make sure it didn't break any other packages.

0 + 0

HippoMan

5/13/23, 4:20 PM

Thank you very much. However, as I mentioned in my original post, purging the package will also uninstall numerous dependencies, and this could render my OS unusable. I am trying to see if I can fix this without purging.

HippoMan

5/13/23, 5:26 PM

PS: Is there a different option, other than `--force-all` which will only purge the one package and not uninstall any of its dependencies?

Someone

5/14/23, 2:56 AM

@HippoMan You can try: `dpkg -r` without force-all

Someone

5/15/23, 3:20 AM

@HippoMan See the edit

HippoMan

5/16/23, 5:44 PM

Oh, so are you saying that after Step 5 and before Step 6, the only package which will be uninstalled would be `desktop-file-utils` and not any of its dependencies? If so, then I see that this would indeed be a "safe" way to deal with this problem.

HippoMan

5/17/23, 4:10 PM

Oh ... I'm sorry ... I missed step 3 in the edit. So ... I have to figure out all of the dependencies and then mark them as being manually installed; then, they won't be uninstalled during the purge. That raises the question of how to get an accurate list of dependencies, but perhaps I can figure that out.

Someone

5/17/23, 4:11 PM

@HippoMan I've already added all the dependencies in my answer.

HippoMan

5/17/23, 4:12 PM

In `aptitude`, a much longer list of dependencies is shown to me.

Someone

5/17/23, 4:14 PM

@HippoMan I believe those packages are further dependencies of the listed packages. I saw that on the Official Ubuntu package search. Thus, marking the packages as manual will mark all packages as manual.

HippoMan

5/17/23, 9:02 PM

Thank you, but in the recent past with a different package, I did a purge like this, and not only did the `official` Ubuntu dependencies get wiped out after the purge, but also, there were other dependencies that came from packages that I added from from other repos, and they got wiped out, also. I know for a fact that there are other such packages that I have added from other repos which are dependencies of `desktop-file-utils` directly. I will carefully find all of those and mark them as `manual` before I go forward with this. Thank you for all your help!

Score:-1

Ubuntu

HippoMan

5/20/23, 11:21 PM

It turns out that this has nothing to do with packages nor with the apt system.

I discovered that I had accidentally set XDG_DATA_DIRS to point to a non-existent directory.

Once I fixed this, the problem went away.

Here are more details as to why this fixed the problem ...

These are the contents of /var/lib/dpkg/info/desktop-file-utils.postinst ...

#!/bin/sh

set -e

update-desktop-database -q

if [ "$1" = "triggered" ]; then
    exit 0
fi

I ran update-desktop-database -q from the command line, and it didn't give any output, but it exited with a non-zero return code.

I ran it again like this: update-desktop-database -v. This time, it gave an error message which stated that the applications subdirectory of the path that is contained in XDG_DATA_DIRS didn't exist. This showed me that I had set XDG_DATA_DIRS incorrectly.

Once I reset XDG_DATA_DIRS to a proper value, the update-desktop-database command started exiting with a zero return code, and the desktop-file-utils error in apt that I mentioned above stopped occurring.

0 + 0

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Xubuntu: "desktop-file-utils" stopped being able to be installed

TH: Xubuntu: "desktop-file-utils" ไม่สามารถติดตั้งได้

RO: Xubuntu: „desktop-file-utils” nu mai poate fi instalat

RU: Xubuntu: невозможно установить «desktop-file-utils»

VI: Xubfox: "desktop-file-utils" không thể cài đặt được

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