[Bug 1193858] Re: autoremove after uninstalling libgv-php5 makes system unbootable

[Jan Rheinländer]

I can confirm this bug. I think I got into this problem by install gdb64
and then removing it again. A subsequent apt-get autoremove removed the
link to ld-2.17.so in /lib64.

I was able to recover much more easily by prefixing busybox to the ln
command (since busybox seems to be statically linked it does not require
the missing link in /lib64).

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1193858

Title:
  autoremove after uninstalling libgv-php5 makes system unbootable

Status in “graphviz” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I'm reporting this bug against libgv-php5, since I believe this its
  dependencies may be the culprit... but I can't be 100% sure.

  I am running Ubuntu 13.04 64bit. After doing

  apt-get purge libgv-php5

  to remove the PHP graphviz package, libgv-php5:amd64
  (2.26.3-14ubuntu1), I started receiving prompts to do an autoremove
  when installing/uninstalling other packages. When I finally did this,
  my system crashed and became unbootable; not even into a recovery mode
  or with old kernels. This isn't very friendly, and whatever dependency
  problem caused it needs to be fixed.

  Here is what the apt log said about the initial autoremove attempt:

  Start-Date: 2013-06-22  23:31:30
  Commandline: apt-get autoremove
  Remove: lib64readline6:i386 (6.2-9ubuntu1), libpython3-stdlib:i386 (3.3.1-0ubuntu1), libpython2.7-stdlib:i386 (2.7.4-2ubuntu3), libpython2.7:i386 (2.7.4-2ubuntu3), lib64ncurses5:i386 (5.9-10ubuntu4), libpython3.3-minimal:i386 (3.3.1-1ubuntu5), libreadline6:i386 (6.2-9ubuntu1), libc6-amd64:i386 (2.17-0ubuntu5), libpython2.7-minimal:i386 (2.7.4-2ubuntu3), lib64tinfo5:i386 (5.9-10ubuntu4), libpython3.3-stdlib:i386 (3.3.1-1ubuntu5)
  Error: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
  End-Date: 2013-06-22  23:31:45

  On investigation, it appears that this autoremove somehow broke the
  following links within /lib64

  ld-lsb-x86-64.so.3 -> ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
  ld-lsb-x86-64.so.2 -> ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
  ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 -> ld-2.17.so

  thus breaking bash, ls etc...

  I managed to recover as follows:
  1. I created a live installation on a USB key and booted from it.
  2. I could not chroot into the system from the live install because of the broken links, so I had to fix them with from within /lib64:
      sudo ln -s ../lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ld-2.17.so ld-linux-x86-64.so.2
      Then I could chroot into the system from the live install.
  3. Once chrooted into the system, I tried

  root at ubuntu:/# apt-get install -f
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree       
  Reading state information... Done
  Correcting dependencies... Done
  The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
    libpython2.7-minimal:i386 libpython2.7-stdlib:i386 libpython3.3-minimal:i386 libpython3.3-stdlib:i386 libreadline6:i386
  Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
  The following packages will be REMOVED:
    libc6-amd64:i386 libpython2.7:i386
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
  6 not fully installed or removed.
  Need to get 134 kB of archives.
  After this operation, 14.1 MB disk space will be freed.
  Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
  Get:1 http://mirror.ox.ac.uk/sites/archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ raring/main libreadline6 i386 6.2-9ubuntu1 [134 kB]
  Fetched 134 kB in 0s (305 kB/s)  
  (Reading database ... 320194 files and directories currently installed.)
  Removing libc6-amd64 ...
  Removing libpython2.7:i386 ...
  Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
  ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
  Setting up libpython3.3-minimal:i386 (3.3.1-1ubuntu5) ...
  dpkg: error processing libreadline6:i386 (--configure):
   package libreadline6:i386 is not ready for configuration
   cannot configure (current status `half-installed')
  Setting up libpython2.7-minimal:i386 (2.7.4-2ubuntu3) ...
  Errors were encountered while processing:
   libreadline6:i386
  E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

  which I managed to recover from by doing...

  root at ubuntu:/# apt-get -f install --reinstall libreadline6:i386
  ...
  root at ubuntu:/# apt-get install -f
  ...
  root at ubuntu:/# apt-get autoremove

  Then, on exiting from the chroot I was able to reboot my system.
  Everything seems to be running smoothly now. I have done apt-get
  clean, apt-get update, apt-get upgrade and it seems happy enough.

  Full details of the problem and how I was able to recover can be found
  here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2156721

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