Package Database screwed up after upgrade 12.04 to 12.10

[ShanaVar]

Hey everyone!

I think something went wrong during the update from 12.04 to 12.10. In 12.04 I hade the Kubuntu backports repo enabled and did upgrade my kde to 4.9.3. So now after the upgrade to 12.10, when trying to install new packages, I get the following error messages when i e.g. try to install kde-workspace-dev (sorry for german system language, rough translation below)

Die folgenden Pakete haben unerfüllte Abhängigkeiten:
kde-workspace-dev : Hängt ab von: libksignalplotter4 (= 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2) aber 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3 soll installiert werden
Hängt ab von: libprocessui4a (= 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2) aber 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3 soll installiert werden
...
Hängt ab von: kdelibs5-dev (>= 4:4.9.3) soll aber nicht installiert werden
E: Probleme können nicht korrigiert werden, Sie haben zurückgehaltene defekte Pakete.

It is saying that the following packages have unmet dependencies and that kde-workspace-dev depends on libksignalplotter4 (= 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2) but 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3 is set to be installed. The last line says that Problems can't be corrected, and that I got defect packages. Funny thing is, ls /etc/apt/sources.list shows the following:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu quantal main universe restricted multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-security universe main multiverse restricted
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates universe main multiverse restricted

and and ls on /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ doesn't show a single file containig precise.

output from apt-cache policy libksignalplotter4:

Installiert: 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3
Kandidat: 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3
Versionstabelle:
*** 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3 0
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2 0
500 http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/ppa/ubuntu/ quantal/main i386 Packages
4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2.1 0
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal-updates/universe i386 Packages
4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2 0
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/universe i386 Packages

I re-enabled the kubuntu ppa and backports now and did a update & upgrade, but nothing changed. Somehow apt thinks that the package from 12.04 has a higher version and doesn't upgrade the installed packages.
And finally it seems to me, that apt thinks that the ubuntu12.04 packages come from the quantal repo. Here is an example output for libksignalplotter4 (apt-cache showpkg libksignalplotter4):

Package: libksignalplotter4
Versions:
4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3 (/var/lib/dpkg/status)
Description Language:
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_b inary-i386_Packages
MD5: e12b0dd8eac5e586fe23b76d6c51050c
Description Language: en
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_i 18n_Translation-en
MD5: e12b0dd8eac5e586fe23b76d6c51050c

4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2 (/var/lib/apt/lists/ppa.launchpad.net_kubuntu-ppa_ppa_ubuntu_dists_quantal_main_binary-i386_Packages)
Description Language:
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_b inary-i386_Packages
MD5: e12b0dd8eac5e586fe23b76d6c51050c
Description Language: en
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_i 18n_Translation-en
MD5: e12b0dd8eac5e586fe23b76d6c51050c

4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2.1 (/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal-updates_universe_binary-i386_Packages)
Description Language:
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_b inary-i386_Packages
MD5: e12b0dd8eac5e586fe23b76d6c51050c
Description Language: en
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_i 18n_Translation-en
MD5: e12b0dd8eac5e586fe23b76d6c51050c

4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2 (/var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_b inary-i386_Packages)
Description Language:
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_b inary-i386_Packages
MD5: e12b0dd8eac5e586fe23b76d6c51050c
Description Language: en
File: /var/lib/apt/lists/archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_quantal_universe_i 18n_Translation-en
MD5: e12b0dd8eac5e586fe23b76d6c51050c


Reverse Depends:
ksysguard,libksignalplotter4 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3
kde-workspace-dev,libksignalplotter4 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2
ksysguard,libksignalplotter4 4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2
ksysguard,libksignalplotter4 4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2.1
kde-workspace-dev,libksignalplotter4 4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2.1
ksysguard,libksignalplotter4 4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2
kde-workspace-dev,libksignalplotter4 4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2
Dependencies:
4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3 - libc6 (2 2.1.3) libkdecore5 (2 4:4.9.3) libqtcore4 (2 4:4.7.0~beta1) libqtgui4 (2 4:4.5.3) libstdc++6 (2 4.1.1)
4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2 - libc6 (2 2.1.3) libkdecore5 (2 4:4.9.3) libqtcore4 (2 4:4.7.0~beta1) libqtgui4 (2 4:4.5.3) libstdc++6 (2 4.1.1)
4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2.1 - libc6 (2 2.1.3) libkdecore5 (2 4:4.9.2) libqtcore4 (2 4:4.7.0~beta1) libqtgui4 (2 4:4.5.3) libstdc++6 (2 4.1.1)
4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2 - libc6 (2 2.1.3) libkdecore5 (2 4:4.9.2) libqtcore4 (2 4:4.7.0~beta1) libqtgui4 (2 4:4.5.3) libstdc++6 (2 4.1.1)
Provides:
4:4.9.3-0ubuntu1~ubuntu12.04.1~ppa3 -
4:4.9.3-0ubuntu0.1~ppa2 -
4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2.1 -
4:4.9.2-0ubuntu2 -
Reverse Provides:



Does anyone have any idea how to get out of this mess?

Thanks a lot in advance!

[Snowhog]

In the console, type:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

dist-upgrade is "better" than upgrade, as it handles changing dependencies better.

upgrade
upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages
currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in
/etc/apt/sources.list. Packages currently installed with new
versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no
circumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages
not already installed retrieved and installed. New versions of
currently installed packages that cannot be upgraded without
changing the install status of another package will be left at
their current version. An update must be performed first so that
apt-get knows that new versions of packages are available.

dist-upgrade
dist-upgrade in addition to performing the function of upgrade,
also intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions
of packages; apt-get has a "smart" conflict resolution system, and
it will attempt to upgrade the most important packages at the
expense of less important ones if necessary. So, dist-upgrade
command may remove some packages. The /etc/apt/sources.list file
contains a list of locations from which to retrieve desired package
files. See also apt_preferences(5) for a mechanism for overriding
the general settings for individual packages.

[ShanaVar]

I tried the dist-upgrade, but it says:

"0 aktualisiert, 0 neu installiert, 0 zu entfernen und 0 nicht aktualisiert."

meaning nothing to do and everything up to date according to apt-get.

Best wishes,
ShanaVar

[ShanaVar]

After a little bit of investigation, what did solve the problem was the following:

I pinned all the quantal repos to a priority of 1001. After that I did a dist-upgrade to "downgrade" from the 12.04 kubuntu backports repo to quantal kubuntu-ppa and everything seems to work fine now.

Best wishes,
ShanaVar