#1062811 aptitude: search "?tag(tag)" fails to find packages in security when debtags is installed

Package:
aptitude
Source:
aptitude
Description:
terminal-based package manager
Submitter:
Fabien Orjollet
Date:
2024-02-03 13:51:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1062811#5
Date:
2024-02-03 13:47:12 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

There seems to be a bad interaction between 'aptitude' and 'debtags'.
When searching using the ?tag search term, aptitude cannot find packages whose
candidate version is in the security repository.
For example:

$ apt policy libc6 debtags
libc6:
  Installed: 2.36-9+deb12u4
  Candidate: 2.36-9+deb12u4
  Version table:
 *** 2.36-9+deb12u4 500
        500 https://deb.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.36-9+deb12u3 500
        500 https://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main amd64 Packages
debtags:
  Installed: 2.1.5
  Candidate: 2.1.5
  Version table:
 *** 2.1.5 500
        500 https://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
$ aptitude search "?name(^libc6$)?tag(^role::shared-lib$)"; echo $?
1


Deinstalling 'debtags' solves the problem:


$ apt policy libc6 debtags
libc6:
  Installed: 2.36-9+deb12u4
  Candidate: 2.36-9+deb12u4
  Version table:
 *** 2.36-9+deb12u4 500
        500 https://deb.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.36-9+deb12u3 500
        500 https://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main amd64 Packages
debtags:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.1.5
  Version table:
     2.1.5 500
        500 https://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main amd64 Packages
$ aptitude -F "%p" search "?name(^libc6$)?tag(^role::shared-lib$)"; echo $?
libc6
0


Best Regards