Control: severity -1 important Hi!
On Wed, 2025-10-01 at 13:45:13 +0200, Lee Garrett wrote: > Source: dlocate > Version: 1.17 > Severity: grave > X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected] > on a fresh trixie install, /etc/cron.daily/dlocate will fail every day with > following email: > > /etc/cron.daily/dlocate: > grep-available: /var/lib/dpkg/available: No such file or directory > > The call chain is: > /etc/cron.daily/dlocate -> /usr/sbin/update-dlocatedb -> > /usr/share/dlocate/update-dpkg-list > > This file doesn't seem to be created on trixie systems, and on my upgraded > systems /var/lib/dpkg/available seems to be at least 5 years old. It seems > to have been created in the past with `dpkg --update-avail`, dlocate should > ensure this is being called and the file is current before depending on > the existence of the file. dlocate uses the available database to replicate what dpkg used to print in its «dpkg-query --list» output, but that one has also since stopped loading the available file by default. dlocate cannot know from where to update the available file from, most probably from apt, but another frontend could be in use. I don't think it would be safe for anything else to remove the available file either. I've locally switched the grep-available calls to use «dpkg --print-avail» instead which does not fail with a non-existent available database file. I'll probably file a report against dctrl-tools so that grep-available does not fail on a non-existent available database file. Besides that, I think, that at least in your present but stale case your best option is to run something like «dpkg --clear-avail» or simply remove the available database file. > I've set the severity to grave, since AFAICS this will cause dlocate to either > not work or work with several years old stale data. The stale data would only affect the non-installed package listing, which does not seem grave to me. I've lowered it to important, because the cron spam can be very annoying. I'm uploading a fix right away, and will probably prepare a stable update once this release hits testing. Thanks, Guillem
