Debian Bug report logs - #1039597
apt: misleading error message "is to be installed"

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Thomas <tnemeth@free.fr>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: apt: misleading error message "is to be installed"

Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2023 18:58:50 +0200

Package: apt
Version: 2.6.1
Severity: minor



    Hi !

    I've always been puzzled by the following error message :

------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 firefox-l10n-fr : Depends: firefox (>= 114.0.2-1) but 114.0-1 is to be installed
E: Broken packages
------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------

    Please note that I do not complain about the unability to install
    the package in question but the error message itself.

    Indeed, it says "[firefox] 114.0-1 is to be installed".

    It's obviously wrong. Firefox is _already_ installed :

------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------
$ dpkg -l | grep firefox
ii  firefox                                       114.0-1                          amd64        Mozilla Firefox web browser
ii  firefox-l10n-fr                               114.0-1                          all          French language package for Firefox
------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------8<------

    The error message says that firefox-l10n-fr depends on a newer
    version of firefox (114.0.2-1). So, the firefox-l10n-fr package
    cannot be installed because I have an "older" version of firefox.

    What the error message does not tell us is why the newer version
    of firefox cannot be installed and thus why the wanted package
    connot be installed as a result.

    The line "The following information may help to resolve the
    situation:" is thus plainly wrong since the displayed message
    absolutly does not help resolve the situation...


-- System Information:
Debian Release: trixie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (100, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 6.1.0-9-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU threads; PREEMPT)
Kernel taint flags: TAINT_USER, TAINT_OOT_MODULE, TAINT_UNSIGNED_MODULE
Locale: LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=fr
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)
LSM: AppArmor: enabled

Versions of packages apt depends on:
ii  adduser                 3.134
ii  debian-archive-keyring  2023.3
ii  gpgv                    2.2.40-1.1
ii  libapt-pkg6.0           2.6.1
ii  libc6                   2.36-9
ii  libgcc-s1               13.1.0-6
ii  libgnutls30             3.7.9-2
ii  libseccomp2             2.5.4-1+b3
ii  libstdc++6              13.1.0-6
ii  libsystemd0             252.11-1

Versions of packages apt recommends:
ii  ca-certificates  20230311

Versions of packages apt suggests:
pn  apt-doc         <none>
ii  aptitude        0.8.13-5
ii  dpkg-dev        1.21.22
ii  gnupg           2.2.40-1.1
ii  gnupg2          2.2.40-1.1
ii  powermgmt-base  1.37

-- no debconf information

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