Package: apt Version: 2.6.0 Severity: normal Steps to reproduce:
$ podman run --rm -it debian:bookworm-slim # apt update # apt upgrade # cat >> /etc/apt/apt.conf <<EOF APT::Get::AutomaticRemove true; EOF # apt install --no-remove base-files (Or use your favourite chroot or container technology.) Expected result: I would expect --no-remove to "win", so that autoremovals are temporarily turned off for that command, and the command succeeds (in the absence of any other factors making it fail). Actual result: root@d376a962eec1:/# apt install --no-remove base-files Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done base-files is already the newest version (12.4). base-files set to manually installed. We are not supposed to delete stuff, can't start AutoRemover E: Handler silently failed root@d376a962eec1:/# echo $? 100 This happens whether there are packages due for autoremoval or not (the failure occurs before apt has decided whether to autoremove anything). It also doesn't matter whether the package to be installed is already installed (like base-files) or not (replace base-files with hello). Workaround: instead use: apt install -oAPT::Get::AutomaticRemove=false --no-remove ... Context: in real life, obviously I'm not actually installing base-files: I'm using `apt install --no-remove` to install a package that *isn't* already installed, together with its dependencies, while making sure that if the package isn't installable (due to multiarch skew or other unsatisfiable dependencies), apt's problem resolution heuristic will prefer to fail the transaction as a less-bad result than removing the desktop environment or other important packages. Thanks, smcv