Update of Ubuntu from 9.04 to 9.10 Beta fails with error message regarding OpenOffice

Same problem. This is my first attempt at an upgrade on my desktop. The upgrade was successful on my older laptop, although I had just fresh installed 9.04 a few weeks ago.

Linux 2.6.28-15-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 9 10:48:52 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Reverted to Jaunty and upgraded old packages (openoffice was upgraded as part of this upgrade). Tried updating to Karmic beta but ran into the same problem as before. No luck :(

I too seem to be hitting the same issue.
Attaching dist-upgrade logs

As best as I can tell from looking at OOo:

openoffice.org-core:

Replaces: openoffice.org-filter-binfilter (<< 1:3.1.0-5)

and

openoffice.org-filter-binfilter:

Depends: openoffice.org-core

So I am not certain why it is getting stuck. I didn't see any other reason for it to get stuck in that cycle, but I might have been missing something...

Is it due to the Pre-Depends and Replaces combination?

Removed all openoffice related packages. Upgrade ran fine after that. Reinstalled openoffice and no problems so far.

Had the same problem. Fixed it by removing openoffice.org-filter-binfilter and then running upgrade again.

Thanks for the tip, after I removed openoffice.org-filter-binfilter, I was able to continue with the upgrade.

Definitely works if you remove openoffice.org-filter-binfilter and then proceed with upgrade to Karmic beta.

My system is i386, fglrx driver. Linux 2.6.28-15-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP Wed Sep 9 10:49:34 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux

I looked into this now and it seems like there is a bug in the apt ordering code that makes this fail when it tries to figure out what to do with openoffice.org-common (a dependency of openoffice.org-core) when the calculation of the ordering happens. A easy workaround is to help the ordering algorithm a bit by doing:

--- control.in.orig 2009-10-16 08:59:14.868431842 +0200
+++ control.in 2009-10-16 08:59:16.570931100 +0200
@@ -654,7 +654,7 @@
 Package: openoffice.orgVER-evolution
 Architecture: %OOO_ARCHS%
 Section: gnome
-Pre-Depends: openoffice.orgVER-core (>= 1:3.1.0-2), debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, procps
+Pre-Depends: openoffice.orgVER-common (>= (>= 1:3.1.0-2), openoffice.orgVER-core (>= 1:3.1.0-2), debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, procps
 Depends: openoffice.orgVER-core (= ${binary:Version}),
  openoffice.orgVER-base,
  ${shlibs:Depends},
@@ -724,7 +724,7 @@
 Package: openoffice.orgVER-filter-binfilter
 Section: misc
 Architecture: %OOO_BINFILTER_ARCHS%
-Pre-Depends: openoffice.orgVER-core (>= 1:3.1.0-2), debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, procps
+Pre-Depends: openoffice.orgVER-common (>= (>= 1:3.1.0-2), openoffice.orgVER-core (>= 1:3.1.0-2), debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, procps
 Depends: openoffice.orgVER-core (= ${binary:Version}),
  ${shlibs:Depends},
  ${misc:Depends}

This seems to fix it.

I also got a couple of reports privately about this bug, it seems to be relatively wide-spread.

Oddly enough having the jaunty version of openoffice.org-evolution installed seems to fix it as well.

It looks like the culprit is apt-pkg/packagemanager.cc:DepAdd(). The chain of events is:

SmartUnpack(openoffice.org-filter-binfilter)
SmartConfigure(openoffice.org-core)
DepAdd(openoffice.org-core)

that checks the dependencies and falls over the openoffice.org-common that is not in any
state that its expecting it to be (the "for (Version **I = VList; ..." loop around line 708).

openoffice.org-common is neither in unpacked nor in configured state and apt does not
cope with that then. But with that said, the real issue is probably the orderlist.cc algorithm.

This bug was fixed in the package openoffice.org - 1:3.1.1-4ubuntu2

---------------
openoffice.org (1:3.1.1-4ubuntu2) karmic; urgency=low

  [ Chris Cheney ]
  * Add openoffice.org-common to Pre-Depends as workaround for apt ordering.
    (LP: #442651)
  * Resynchronise with ooo-build-3-1-1 (01bbcda85cb32be9eb5334430fb208ec5ca60041).
    - patches/dev300/kde4_fpicker_fixes2.diff: kde4 fpicker: fixed 'new folder'
      button
    - patches/dev300/ubuntu-opt.diff: -Os in karmic on powerpc doesn't work

  [ Matthias Klose ]
  * Build using internal boost on jaunty, adjust libgcc3_uno.so URL in
    debian/copyright.

 -- Matthias Klose <email address hidden> Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:06:49 +0200

Upgrading from Karmic to Lucid with "do-release-upgrade -d" seem to fail with the same error message:

Exception during pm.DoInstall(): E:Couldn't configure pre-depend openoffice.org-core for openoffice.org-filter-binfilter, probably a dependency cycle.

Uninstalling openoffice.org makes it possible to do the upgrade. However, it will be difficult to reproduce the problem now that the system is up to date. Is a regression possible or should I file a new bug? The Pre-Depends for openoffice.org-filter-binfilter before the upgrade correctly included openoffice.org-common.

Upgrading from 9.10 to 10.04alpha3 with "update-manager -d" failing on my PC with the same message

Adrian: remove all openoffice* and ooobasis* packages, then upgrade.