#758214 Confusing "unmet dependencies" message when a package would eventually removed with some backward dependencies but are still needed

Package:
apt
Source:
apt
Description:
commandline package manager
Submitter:
Klaus Ethgen
Date:
2014-08-15 14:30:10 UTC
Severity:
minor
#758214#5
Date:
2014-08-15 12:34:27 UTC
From:
To:
On all systems I get the following error at the moment when I do a
"apt-get dist-upgrade":
   ~> apt-get dist-upgrade
   Reading package lists... Done
   Building dependency tree
   Reading state information... Done
   Calculating upgrade... Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
   requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
   distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
   or been moved out of Incoming.
   The following information may help to resolve the situation:

   The following packages have unmet dependencies:
    dictionaries-common : Depends: libtext-iconv-perl but it is not going to be installed
   E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

On a other system I get the same for the packages zenity and
libwebkitgtk-3.0-0.

This alone is not the point. The point is that all packages are already
installed in the newest available version.

As this means that a dist-upgrade might block some smooth upgrades, I
did set the severity to important.
#758214#10
Date:
2014-08-15 12:54:13 UTC
From:
To:
On 2014-08-14, Perl 5.20 was uploaded to unstable. This requires
rebuilding all of its 557 reverse dependencies via binNMUs which has
started on 2014-08-15:
https://release.debian.org/transitions/html/perl5.20.html

libtext-iconv-perl being one of them ...

In a couple of days, the bumpy ride in unstable should be finished,
and everything back to normal.


Cheers,
gregor, closing this bug
#758214#11
Date:
2014-08-15 13:14:48 UTC
From:
To:
Am Fr den 15. Aug 2014 um 13:54 schrieb gregor herrmann:

I knew of that. But first, please note that _all mentioned packages_ are
up to date and don't need updates and second, neither zenity nor
libwebkitgtk-3.0-0 have any to do with perl.

Regards
   Klaus
#758214#22
Date:
2014-08-15 14:27:39 UTC
From:
To:
This problem occurs as libwebkitgtk-3.0-0 would be deinstalled as its
dependency in 4th deep would be deinstalled (libtext-iconv-perl) from
new version of perl. However, there is no need at that moment to install
newer version of perl.

So this should just block upgrade of perl but never ever break. (Notes
about the problematic dependency would be nice.)

Regards
   Klaus