Upgrade problem

[Rod J]

Hi guys,

Some recent update or something broke my system. It's been like this for about a week now.

In Muon it shows the package kde-workspace-bin is broken. It seems to have something to do with libkscreensaver5. I haven't been able to resolve it either in Muon or apt in the terminal.

I just tried this just now:

rod@Core2Duo:~$ sudo apt-get check
[sudo] password for rod: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 kde-workspace-bin : Depends: libkscreensaver5 (= 4:4.8.5-0ubuntu0.3) but 4:4.8.5-0ubuntu0.2 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

So then I did this:

rod@Core2Duo:~$ sudo apt-get -f install libkscreensaver5 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  linux-headers-3.2.0-36-generic-pae linux-headers-3.2.0-36
  linux-headers-3.2.0-37 linux-headers-3.2.0-37-generic-pae sensible-mda
  libode1
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libkscreensaver5
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
94 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 25.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 [url]http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/[/url] precise-updates/main libkscreensaver5 i386 4:4.8.5-0ubuntu0.3 [25.3 kB]
Fetched 25.3 kB in 0s (0 B/s)         
Failed to fetch [url]http://nz.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/k/kde-workspace/libkscreensaver5_4.8.5-0ubuntu0.3_i386.deb[/url]  Hash Sum mismatch
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
rod@Core2Duo:~$

The Hash Sum mismatch is probably a clue but how to fix that? Is the package being downloaded corrupted?
OK, so tried this:

rod@Core2Duo:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade --fix-missing
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 kde-workspace-bin : Depends: libkscreensaver5 (= 4:4.8.5-0ubuntu0.3) but 4:4.8.5-0ubuntu0.2 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.
rod@Core2Duo:~$

I don't know quite what to try next, I seem to be going around in circles . Any suggestions?

[claydoh]

try switching to a different server for updates temporarily, there is a problem with that package in the nz repo you are using it seems, as you are surmising it likely is corrupted. You can change the repo from within muon by going to the Software Sources tool and change to a different country, or just to the main server.

This package will likely be replaced, but how soon I could not say.

[Rod J]

Hi claydoh,

Thanks for your help.

OK, I've tried three different servers (another nz one, a server in Australia, and the main server at archive.ubuntu.com) and the problem is still not resolved.

I may have to wait until the package is replaced.

[eddieg538]

It seems to me I had a problem like this and was told to sudo apt-get -f install but when I put a specific program to install I got the same error. What happens if you just use

sudo apt-get -f install

without putting this libkscreensaver5 at the end?

[Rod J]

OK, I tried that without the libkscreensaver5 at the end but it still failed:

rod@Core2Duo:~$ sudo apt-get -f install
[sudo] password for rod: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  linux-headers-3.2.0-36-generic-pae linux-headers-3.2.0-36
  linux-headers-3.2.0-37 linux-headers-3.2.0-37-generic-pae sensible-mda
  libode1
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libkscreensaver5
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libkscreensaver5
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
94 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 25.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Get:1 http://ucmirror.canterbury.ac.nz/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main libkscreensaver5 i386 4:4.8.5-0ubuntu0.3 [25.3 kB]
Fetched 25.3 kB in 0s (702 kB/s)              
Failed to fetch http://ucmirror.canterbury.ac.nz/ubuntu/pool/main/k/kde-workspace/libkscreensaver5_4.8.5-0ubuntu0.3_i386.deb  Hash Sum mismatch
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?
rod@Core2Duo:~$

[eddieg538]

It does look like you will have to wait for your sources site to to be corrected. When I have upgrade or update issues like broken packages I run.....

sudo dpkg --configure -a which fixes broken packages but not sure if it helps with hash sum mismatch

I remember it was the update to kde 4.10 that had dependency issues with kmahjongg-data and I had to do sudo dpkg --configure -a and sudo apt-get -f install to finish the update. There are some really good people on here that can probably help you get this fixed. Is it possible to use a server outside of your country? Maybe backports like here sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/backports

[Rod J]

OK, thanks all for your help.

I eventually fixed the problem by downloading the libkscreensaver5 package manually from http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise-u...aver5/download using my regular New Zealand server. I then checked the package with an MD5 checksum. It was fine.

I installed the libscreensaver5 package manually using the QApt package installer without problems and finally ran a sudo apt-get upgrade and everything is rosy again!

I'm still baffled why apt couldn't download it without problems even though I deleted the libkscreensaver5_4.4.8.5-0ubuntu0.3_i386.deb.FAILED" file in the /var/cache/apt/archives/partial directory several times (was there a mysterious cache of the corrupted file somewhere that was intervening?)

Anyway I'm marking this thread as solved.

[Rod J]

Further to my suspicion of a corrupted file in a cache (on my system) somewhere:

Some time ago I installed Apt-Cacher NG on this machine as a way of caching updates for my other system (I've got a slow internet connection here, also a limited data cap, and I wanted to save having to download all the updates twice). I just now checked the Apt-cacher cache and it did indeed contain the corrupted version of the libkscreensaver5 file. Could that be what was causing apt to keep downloading a corrupted version of the file because it was actually coming from the cache rather than a fresh copy from the apt server?

I replaced the corrupted version in the cache by importing the good version so hopefully the problem won't be repeated when I update the other system.

[Snowhog]

Could that be what was causing apt to keep downloading a corrupted version of the file because it was actually coming from the cache rather than a fresh copy from the apt server?

Yup.

The main principle is that a central machine hosts the proxy for a local network, and clients configure their APT setup to download through it. Apt-Cacher NG keeps a copy of all useful data that passes through it, and when a similar request is made, the cached copy of the data is delivered without being re-downloaded.

[Rod J]

Thanks Snowhog.

I knew that's how it works for the client machines but the machine I was having the problem with was the machine with the cache on it. Apparently the cache is also used if the same package is requested again? I didn't realise that, it sure makes it more difficult to fix a corrupted update file if it gets into the cache.