Error 'update-initramfs: 175: awk: Too many levels of symbolic links' when using APT

I'm on Ubuntu 22.10, when trying to run apt or apt-get with {install|remove|auto-remove} I got the following error:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up initramfs-tools (0.140ubuntu17) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.140ubuntu17) ...
/usr/sbin/update-initramfs: 175: awk: Too many levels of symbolic links
dpkg: error processing package initramfs-tools (--configure):
 installed initramfs-tools package post-installation script subprocess returned 
error exit status 127
Errors were encountered while processing:
 initramfs-tools
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

the error message shows:

/usr/sbin/update-initramfs: 175: awk: Too many levels of symbolic links

so I tried to run update-initramfs separately

ya22y@IYB:~$ sudo update-initramfs -u
/usr/sbin/update-initramfs: 175: awk: Too many levels of symbolic links

to ensure file permissions

    ya22y@IYB:~$ stat ../../usr/sbin/update-initramfs
  File: ../../usr/sbin/update-initramfs
  Size: 6906        Blocks: 16         IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: 803h/2051d  Inode: 6553706     Links: 1
Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)

as far as I know, there's an infinite loop of file A referencing to file B leading to this error. I checked to update-initramfs code but I have no clue how to resolve this error.

EDIT I checked update-initramfs again, the error source was boot_opts

ro_boot_check()
{
        # check irrelevant inside of a chroot
        if [ ! -r /proc/mounts ] || ischroot; then
                return 0
        fi

        #shellcheck disable=SC1004
        boot_opts=$(awk '/boot/{if ((match($4, /^ro/) || match($4, /,ro/)) \
                && $2 == "/boot") print "ro"}' /proc/mounts)

        if [ -n "${boot_opts}" ]; then
                echo "W: /boot is ro mounted." >&2
                echo "W: update-initramfs: Not updating ${initramfs}" >&2
                exit 0
        fi
}

boot directory

ya22y@IYB:~$ ls ../../boot
config-5.19.0-35-generic      memtest86+.elf
efi                           memtest86+_multiboot.bin
grub                          System.map-5.19.0-35-generic
initrd.img                    vmlinuz
initrd.img-5.19.0-35-generic  vmlinuz-5.19.0-35-generic
memtest86+.bin

I tried

awk
Command 'awk' not found, but can be installed with:
sudo apt install gawk          # version 1:5.1.0-1build3, or
sudo apt install mawk          # version 1.3.4.20200120-3.1
sudo apt install original-awk  # version 2018-08-27-1

as @Bodo mentionned

ya22y@IYB:~$ ls -l ../../usr/bin/awk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 12 mars   6 23:17 ../../usr/bin/awk -> /usr/bin/awk

also tried

sudo sh -c 'awk'
sh: 1: awk: Too many levels of symbolic links

so i decided to change awk to mawk inside /usr/sbin/update-initramfs

 
 #shellcheck disable=SC1004
       #changing awk to mawk 
       boot_opts=$(mawk '/boot/{if ((match($4, /^ro/) || match($4, /,ro/)) \
                && $2 == "/boot") print "ro"}' /proc/mounts)

checking

ya22y@IYB:~$ sudo update-initramfs -u
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-5.19.0-35-generic
ya22y@IYB:~$ 

Now i got a different error

sudo apt autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up initramfs-tools (0.140ubuntu17) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Setting up original-awk (2018-08-27-1) ...
update-alternatives: error: cannot stat file '/usr/bin/awk': Too many levels of 
symbolic links
dpkg: error processing package original-awk (--configure):
 installed original-awk package post-installation script subprocess returned err
or exit status 2

Mainly, the awk link is broken, how can i repaire that ?

Manually altering files under /etc/alternatives/ will break the Ubuntu Alternatives system and result in errors ... Please see for example: error: cannot stat file '/etc/alternatives/my.cnf': Invalid argument

The default awk variant installed on Ubuntu is mawk ... You should be able to, correctly, fix the broken/unusable file/link for awk under /etc/alternatives/ by removing it first, like so:

sudo rm /etc/alternatives/awk

Then, recreating it the right way, like so:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure mawk

Notice: If gawk is installed on your system, then it will take precedence and that link should read:

$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/awk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Mar 17 11:44 /etc/alternatives/awk -> /usr/bin/gawk

or otherwise, it should read:

$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/awk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Mar 17 11:44 /etc/alternatives/awk -> /usr/bin/mawk

Also notice: That /usr/bin/awk is merely a symbolic link managed by the Ubuntu Alternatives system as well that leads back to /etc/alternatives/awk and it should be like:

$ ls -l /usr/bin/awk 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Jan  8  2022 /usr/bin/awk -> /etc/alternatives/awk

So, you shouldn't manually alter that one either or you will need to fix both by removing them first, like so:

$ sudo rm /etc/alternatives/awk /usr/bin/awk

Then, recreate them both the right way like so:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure mawk

And, afterwords, they should be fixed and look something like this:

$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/awk /usr/bin/awk 
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 13 Mar 17 14:02 /etc/alternatives/awk -> /usr/bin/gawk
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Mar 17 14:02 /usr/bin/awk -> /etc/alternatives/awk