#1089744 tzdata: oldstable version fails to update

Package:
tzdata
Source:
tzdata
Submitter:
Christoph Egger
Date:
2025-08-12 09:29:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1089744#5
Date:
2024-12-12 00:19:07 UTC
From:
To:
Hi!

tzdata update fails here, installing 2024a from /var/cache/apt gets the system back to working. This is from inside a systemd-nspawn.

Thank you

  Chistoph


(Reading database ... 65470 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../tzdata_2024b-0+deb11u1_all.deb ...
Unpacking tzdata (2024b-0+deb11u1) over (2024a-0+deb12u1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/tzdata_2024b-0+deb11u1_all.deb (--unpack):
 unable to open '/usr/share/zoneinfo/posix/Africa/Abidjan.dpkg-new': No such file or directory
  Errors were encountered while processing:
    /var/cache/apt/archives/tzdata_2024b-0+deb11u1_all.deb
      E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
#1089744#10
Date:
2024-12-12 17:28:34 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Do I understand correctly that you try to downgrade tzdata from the
bookworm version to the bullseye version?

Or is it the log of the rollback you did, as it seems to be implied by
the version against which the bug has been reported?

Regards
Aurelien
#1089744#15
Date:
2024-12-30 20:32:18 UTC
From:
To:
Hello Aurelien,

the problem described by Christoph happens for me, too.

Well, yes and no. It tries to install the bullseye version over the one
from bookworm, but it's not a downgrade because 2024b-0+deb11u1 >
2024a-0+deb12u1.

$ apt policy tzdata
tzdata:
  Installed: 2024a-0+deb12u1
  Candidate: 2024b-0+deb11u1
  Version table:
     2024b-0+deb11u1 500
        500 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security/main armhf Packages
 *** 2024a-0+deb12u1 500
        500 https://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm/main armhf Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2024a-0+deb11u1 500
        500 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye/main armhf Packages
     2021a-1+deb11u11 500
        500 http://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates/main armhf Packages

OK, you could argue I should have deleted the bullseye sources from my
apt configuration or at least have given bookworm a higher pin. But you
could also argue that bullseye-security shouldn't have a higer version
than bookworm(-security) or that the upgrade from 2024a-0+X to 2024b-0+X
should just work.

Best regards
Uwe
#1089744#20
Date:
2024-12-30 20:48:11 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

It seems that the issue is that your system is missing bookworm-updates.
So this will be fixed with the next point release in a couple of weeks.

This is due to the way the LTS team is doing updates, ie they all go to
-security.

That would be difficult, the failure is due to the use of dir_to_symlink
from dpkg-maintscript-helper.

Regards
Aurelien
#1089744#25
Date:
2024-12-30 22:12:32 UTC
From:
To:
Hello Aurelien,

OK, I added bookworm-updates and proper pinning now. Upgrade
2024a-0+deb12u1 -> 2024b-0+deb12u1 succeeded \o/

I don't understand that one. I find dpkg-maintscript-helper neither in
tzdata's origin/bullseye branch nor in origin/bookworm. *shrug*

Best regards
Uwe
#1089744#30
Date:
2024-12-30 22:31:03 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

Great!

Regards
Aurelien