With the aptitude TUI or command line, it is not possible to upgrade
wireshark to 4.2.0-1 without explicitly upgrading wireshark-common
too or removing wireshark-qt. With both interfaces, the proposed
default is to keep both wireshark and wireshark-qt at their current
version, and for the alternative actions, aptitude never proposes to
upgrade wireshark.

Note that the wireshark package now has:

Replaces: wireshark-gtk (<< 3.0.0~), wireshark-qt
Breaks: wireshark-gtk (<< 3.0.0~), wireshark-qt

That's why wireshark-qt is no longer useful and could be safely
removed.

For instance, with the command line:

# aptitude install wireshark
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libnghttp3-3{a} libopencore-amrnb0{a} libqt6dbus6{a} libqt6gui6{a}
  libqt6multimedia6{a} libqt6network6{a} libqt6opengl6{a}
  libqt6printsupport6{a} libqt6qml6{a} libqt6qmlmodels6{a} libqt6quick6{a}
  libqt6waylandclient6{a} libqt6waylandcompositor6{a}
  libqt6waylandeglclienthwintegration6{a}
  libqt6waylandeglcompositorhwintegration6{a} libqt6widgets6{a}
  libqt6wlshellintegration6{a} libts0{a} libwireshark17{a} libwiretap14{a}
  libwsutil15{a} qt6-gtk-platformtheme{a} qt6-qpa-plugins{a} qt6-wayland{a}
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  wireshark-qt{a}
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libwireshark-data wireshark{b} wireshark-doc
3 packages upgraded, 24 newly installed, 1 to remove and 74 not upgraded.
Need to get 48.7 MB of archives. After unpacking 172 MB will be used.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 wireshark : Depends: wireshark-common (= 4.2.0-1) but 4.0.11-1 is installed and it is kept back
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

     Keep the following packages at their current version:
1)     wireshark [4.0.11-1 (now)]
2)     wireshark-qt [4.0.11-1 (now, unstable)]

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?]

BTW, concerning the unmet dependency

 wireshark : Depends: wireshark-common (= 4.2.0-1) but 4.0.11-1 is installed and it is kept back

why doesn't aptitude propose to upgrade wireshark-common?
That's the obvious solution!

Indeed, the following works:

# aptitude install wireshark wireshark-common
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libnghttp3-3{a} libopencore-amrnb0{a} libqt6dbus6{a} libqt6gui6{a}
  libqt6multimedia6{a} libqt6network6{a} libqt6opengl6{a}
  libqt6printsupport6{a} libqt6qml6{a} libqt6qmlmodels6{a} libqt6quick6{a}
  libqt6waylandclient6{a} libqt6waylandcompositor6{a}
  libqt6waylandeglclienthwintegration6{a}
  libqt6waylandeglcompositorhwintegration6{a} libqt6widgets6{a}
  libqt6wlshellintegration6{a} libts0{a} libwireshark17{a} libwiretap14{a}
  libwsutil15{a} qt6-gtk-platformtheme{a} qt6-qpa-plugins{a} qt6-wayland{a}
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  libwireshark16{u} libwiretap13{u} libwsutil14{u} wireshark-qt{a}
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libwireshark-data wireshark wireshark-common wireshark-doc
4 packages upgraded, 24 newly installed, 4 to remove and 73 not upgraded.
Need to get 49.4 MB of archives. After unpacking 57.3 MB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]

and so does

# aptitude install wireshark wireshark-qt-
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libnghttp3-3{a} libopencore-amrnb0{a} libqt6dbus6{a} libqt6gui6{a}
  libqt6multimedia6{a} libqt6network6{a} libqt6opengl6{a}
  libqt6printsupport6{a} libqt6qml6{a} libqt6qmlmodels6{a} libqt6quick6{a}
  libqt6waylandclient6{a} libqt6waylandcompositor6{a}
  libqt6waylandeglclienthwintegration6{a}
  libqt6waylandeglcompositorhwintegration6{a} libqt6widgets6{a}
  libqt6wlshellintegration6{a} libts0{a} libwireshark17{a} libwiretap14{a}
  libwsutil15{a} qt6-gtk-platformtheme{a} qt6-qpa-plugins{a} qt6-wayland{a}
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  libwireshark16{u} libwiretap13{u} libwsutil14{u} wireshark-qt
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libwireshark-data wireshark wireshark-common wireshark-doc
4 packages upgraded, 24 newly installed, 4 to remove and 73 not upgraded.
Need to get 49.4 MB of archives. After unpacking 57.3 MB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]

     Upgrade the following packages:
1)     wireshark-common [4.0.11-1 (now) -> 4.2.0-1 (testing, unstable)]

and wireshark will be upgraded (I initially go confused by
not seeing a line about wireshark, but that's implied due to
previous information).

Anyway, this should have been the first solution. And on another
machine (with similar config), this is the first solution:

# aptitude install wireshark
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libb2-1{a} libnghttp3-3{a} libqt6core5compat6{a} libqt6core6{a}
  libqt6dbus6{a} libqt6gui6{a} libqt6multimedia6{a} libqt6network6{a}
  libqt6opengl6{a} libqt6printsupport6{a} libqt6qml6{a} libqt6qmlmodels6{a}
  libqt6quick6{a} libqt6waylandclient6{a} libqt6waylandcompositor6{a}
  libqt6waylandeglclienthwintegration6{a}
  libqt6waylandeglcompositorhwintegration6{a} libqt6widgets6{a}
  libqt6wlshellintegration6{a} libts0{a} libwireshark17{a} libwiretap14{a}
  libwsutil15{a} qt6-gtk-platformtheme{a} qt6-qpa-plugins{a}
  qt6-translations-l10n{a} qt6-wayland{a}
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  libwireshark16{u} libwiretap13{u} libwsutil14{u} wireshark-common{u}
  wireshark-qt{a}
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libwireshark-data wireshark{b} wireshark-doc
3 packages upgraded, 27 newly installed, 5 to remove and 101 not upgraded.
Need to get 52.1 MB of archives. After unpacking 75.5 MB will be used.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 wireshark : Depends: wireshark-common (= 4.2.0-1) but it is not going to be installed
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

     Upgrade the following packages:
1)     wireshark-common [4.0.11-1 (now) -> 4.2.0-1 (unstable)]

This is better, but I don't see why aptitude doesn't want to upgrade
wireshark-common by default (like, e.g., wireshark-doc).

Note that this solution doesn't break any Recommends.

I've attached the compressed /var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates file for
of the first machine.

* Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> [231127 15:11]:

Apparently the package relations in wireshark are not ideal,
possibly broken, see bug #1056985.


Chris