>>>>> "Ben" == Ben Collins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
Ben> try running: Ben> dpkg-deb --extract man.deb /tmp/tmpdir Ben> If that fails too, then add "strace -o dpkg-deb.out" to the Ben> start of that line and send me the dpkg-deb.out file. No errors: lyell:~# dpkg-deb --extract /var/cache/apt/archives/man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb /tmp/abc lyell:~# echo $? only crashes when upgrading from 2.3.13 to 2.3.14 with apt-get: Hang on, it worked this time. Oh well... LATER: ARghghhh!!! It only happens (I think) when "Building manual page index in background." is still running from the previous installation: lyell:~# dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/man-db_2.3.13_i386.deb dpkg - warning: downgrading man-db from 2.3.14 to 2.3.13. (Reading database ... 55565 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace man-db 2.3.14 (using .../man-db_2.3.13_i386.deb) ... Removing catpages as well as /var/cache/man hierarchy. Unpacking replacement man-db ... Setting up man-db (2.3.13) ... Building manual page index in background. lyell:~# apt-get upgrade Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done The following packages have been kept back openldapd 1 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/332kB of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y (Reading database ... 55565 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace man-db 2.3.13 (using .../man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb) ... Removing catpages as well as /var/cache/man hierarchy. Unpacking replacement man-db ... dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe) dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb (--unpack): subprocess dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile returned error exit status 2 Building manual page index in background. Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) If I wait for the first installation to complete in the background, then it works. Looks like a race condition or something here... However, this still doesn't explain why my initial installation of man-db failed... So, lets try something else: lyell:~# dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb (Reading database ... 55565 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace man-db 2.3.13 (using .../man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb) ... Document `man-db' is not installed, cannot remove. Removing catpages as well as /var/cache/man hierarchy. Unpacking replacement man-db ... dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe) dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb (--install): subprocess dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile returned error exit status 2 Building manual page index in background. Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb now it wont install at all for me, even when man-db isn' running in the background. Something really weird here. this still works: lyell:~# dpkg-deb --extract /var/cache/apt/archives/man-db_2.3.14_i386.deb /tmp/abc running dpkg -i under strace fills up my hard-disk, but also works, too. only seems to crash when upgrading 2.3.13 to 2.3.14. I cannot reproduce it for 2.3.14 to 2.3.14 (although I suspect having two copies of mandb running at the same time is not a good idea...). So, lets hope something here makes sense to somebody, and I have not made any false conclusions. False conclusion #1: now, it seems to crash regardless of if mandb is running or not. ARGGHH!! However, I have left in that in the message, in case it gives anybody else some ideas. -- Brian May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>