Dpkg deb error subprocess decompress returned error exit status 2

asked Oct 3, 2010 at 19:03

Machine is an older machine I was trying to setup for a project running Debian Buster 32bit
AMD Semperon 3000+ 1.5gb ram no desktop(don’t need one for what I want to do)

Seems to run great untill I try to install a package.
I don’t have anything from any repo besides Debians official repos on purpose.

I keep getting this when I try to install things.

Partitions are setup like this

60gb hd
/boot
/root
and /swap

other drive is 40gb where my /home partition is

dpkg-deb: error: <decompress> subprocess returned error exit status 2

dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives[package name here].deb (--unpack):

dpkg=deb --fsys-tarfile subprocess returned error exit status 2

Errors were encountered while prrocessing:

/var/cache/apt/[package name here].deb

Error Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned error code (1)

Doesn’t seem to matter what it is although some packages will install without error.

Have tried the instructions at this link and a few similar things to no avail

https://itsfoss.com/dpkg-returned-an-error-code-1/

I also can NOT remove the package once this happens when I try to I get unment dependency warnings.
And if I try to install the dependencies it starts with the dpkg errors all over again.

This started when I had Buster installed on it originally so I switched to Stretch thinking the older hardware would work better but had the same problem.
So i reinstalled Buster again and some stuff was whacky so I looked into it and found out either my iso was corrupted or my flash drive was acting funny.
So I tried with a new usb stick and a fresh download that I verified and check for integrity and it seemed to install a lot faster and smoother.

2 days go by and the problem comes back.
Could this be a hardware problem somehow? Maybe a bad hdd?
Both drives are kind of old.

Any other information that could be needed please just ask and I will do my best to share it.

Please show how you are running ‘dpkg’ ? IE:normal user, sudo, su, su — ,….etc
You show the output from when you run the command, but please show everything, including how you run the command.
For example:

garry@debian:~$ dpkg conky-all_1.10.8-1+b1_amd64.deb
dpkg: error: need an action option

Type dpkg --help for help about installing and deinstalling packages [*];
Use 'apt' or 'aptitude' for user-friendly package management;
Type dpkg -Dhelp for a list of dpkg debug flag values;
Type dpkg --force-help for a list of forcing options;
Type dpkg-deb --help for help about manipulating *.deb files;

Options marked [*] produce a lot of output - pipe it through 'less' or 'more' ! 

Doesn’t seem to matter what it is although some packages will install without error.

Don’t you think that the actual package name, and perhaps where you got it might be relevant ? Especially since «some packages» will install with out error. Maybe the mystery package is not packaged properly.

Could this be a hardware problem somehow? Maybe a bad hdd?
Both drives are kind of old.

Could be, if you suspect that it is, then the logical thing to do is to use a live device , with some drive testing tools, and test it. I can not do that for you, since I am not there, and can not access your, you need to do that your self, or take it to someone that can do it for you.
===== also===
You claim you are only using Debian repos, is there some reason you don’t just use :

Use ‘apt’ or ‘aptitude’ for user-friendly package management;

?

Doesn’t seem to matter what it is although some packages will install without error.

Don’t you think that the actual package name, and perhaps where you got it might be relevant ? Especially since «some packages» will install with out error. Maybe the mystery package is not packaged properly.

Could this be a hardware problem somehow? Maybe a bad hdd?
Both drives are kind of old.

Could be, if you suspect that it is, then the logical thing to do is to use a live device , with some drive testing tools, and test it. I can not do that for you, since I am not there, and can not access your, you need to do that your self, or take it to someone that can do it for you.
===== also===
You claim you are only using Debian repos, is there some reason you don’t just use :

Use ‘apt’ or ‘aptitude’ for user-friendly package management;

apt install XXX is how I install things what I meant was that only the official repos are in my sources.list sorry if that was confusing or not clear enough.
Doesn’t seem to make a difference if I log my normal user and use sudo or sudo su or if I log the root account when this is happening.

It will get part of the way into installing and gie me the dpkg error.
If I try to uninstall it I get the unmet dependency error and if I try to install dependencies I get the dpkg error all over again.

For instance this is happening with android sdk which I wanted for the adb tools.
But like I said didn’t seem to matter what package it would randomly decide to do this to me.

As far as testing the dries from a live cd that is no problem i know how to do it for the most part LoL
Is there some tool besides maybe fsck that you would reccomend to use?

Sorry if I am not being clear enough it is not intentional.

Automagically resolving/installing dependencies is what apt/itude are for and don’t need a Desktop/WM to use them. Have had great success in downloading packages and their depends .deb(s) into a directory, cd = change directory or opening a terminal in the folder and installing the things with «dpkg -i *.deb» but this is what’s refered to as «dependency hell».

ie: I don’t have net access have to go to Mcdonald’s, download all xyz package, then it’s depends and any of their depends onto a dang phone. Take em home, transfer to pc and install em all. Noooooooo ! Though dpkg does a great job of installing these packages in order and successful in my experience. Having a real hard time trying to figure what you’re doing and why. Some possible helpful commands related to this though and/or could make your situation even worse, depending. < PUN INTENDED.

Did you «sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get upgrade» the effected Debian install. Man am out of comments on this deal.

I am starting to wonder about the master drive in that machine actually.

I got the error fixed today finally

apt -f install or was it install -f

worked. Although I tried that 2 nights ago more than once and it didn’t help.

But this keeps happening like every other day and today when i got home and turn it on and it was fine then all of a sudden it reboots itself and tries to tell me the OS is missing Oh boy.

So either someone is playing games(if so why did they go after the machine with nothing on it and not this one LoL) or somethings wrong with the machine itself.

I’ll have to run some tests on it I guess.

Thank you for the replies I really do appreciate people at trying to help.

Head_on_a_Stick wrote:

theblueplll wrote:Could this be a hardware problem somehow? Maybe a bad hdd?

^ This.

Has to be some sort of hardware problem since 3 different fresh installs with 2 different ISO’s and this keeps happening.

If the hardware is suspected, that should be the first thing to check

Deb-fan wrote:Is it possible to partition and add a fresh os install. See if the oddities continue. Sounds really frustrating.

What would the point be in doing a fresh install on bad hardware ?

GarryRicketson wrote:If the hardware is suspected, that should be the first thing to check

Deb-fan wrote:Is it possible to partition and add a fresh os install. See if the oddities continue. Sounds really frustrating.

What would the point be in doing a fresh install on bad hardware ?

I SHOULD HAVE thought things through before I even started so I wouldn’t have had to post this.
I’m suspicous of the ATA cable that is in there since one of them broke the end off awful easily while removing it from the drive.

So I ordered some (need a couple for another «project machine» also).

I plan to switch out the cables and run a bunch of tests on the HDD and then go from there.

If the drive is toast not a big deal I have quite a few hanging around from parts I have collected over the years.

Thanks to all for trying to help.

I have created a directory structure with an executable file. Following is the output of tree:

program-5
├── debian
│   ├── DEBIAN
│   │   ├── changelog
│   │   ├── compat
│   │   ├── control
│   │   ├── copyright
│   │   ├── docs
│   │   ├── emacsen-install.ex
│   │   ├── emacsen-remove.ex
│   │   ├── emacsen-startup.ex
│   │   ├── init.d.ex
│   │   ├── manpage.1.ex
│   │   ├── manpage.sgml.ex
│   │   ├── manpage.xml.ex
│   │   ├── menu.ex
│   │   ├── postinst.ex
│   │   ├── postrm.ex
│   │   ├── preinst.ex
│   │   ├── prerm.ex
│   │   ├── program.cron.d.ex
│   │   ├── program.debhelper.log
│   │   ├── program.default.ex
│   │   ├── program.doc-base.EX
│   │   ├── README.Debian
│   │   ├── README.source
│   │   ├── rules
│   │   └── watch.ex
│   └── usr
│       └── local
│           └── include
│               └── myprog
│                   ├── file.txt
└── program *(executable)*

This however, is not working with «file.txt». I want this file to go into /usr/local/include/myprog/ but that is not happening. it’s giving me the error:

(Reading database ... 
(Reading database ... 5%
...
(Reading database ... 100%
(Reading database ... 204105 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking program-v5 (from .../program-5_1.4.2_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /tmp/program-5/debian/program-5_1.4.2_i386.deb (--install):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/local/include/myprog/file.txt', which is also in package program2 20120329-1
dpkg-deb (subprocess): data: internal gzip write error: Broken pipe
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess <decompress> returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb (subprocess): failed in write on buffer copy for failed to write to pipe in copy: Broken pipe
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /tmp/program-5/debian/program-5_1.4.2_i386.deb

Can anyone offer any advice?

asked Mar 29, 2012 at 14:12

The error is pretty clear: You try to install program-v5 and it attempts to overwrite a file already present and owned by package program2.

So you need to either

• manually uninstall program2 before installing program-v5, or

• add the required Conflicts:, Provides:, Replaces: flags in debian/control — see the docs.

Lastly, for packages, /usr is a more natural choice then /usr/local.

answered Mar 29, 2012 at 14:18

From the error message:

trying to overwrite ‘/usr/local/include/myprog/file.txt’, which is
also in package program2

It looks like you have a package program2 already installed on your system that have already installed this file usr/local/include/myprog/file.txt.

You should first uninstall this package dpkg -r program2

answered Mar 29, 2012 at 14:20

Tried this morning to update apturl package version 0.5.2+linuxmint12 as suggested in Update Manager but got these errors in return

/var/cache/apt/archives/apturl_0.5.2+linuxmint12_all.deb uses an unknown compression process for control.tar.zst

and :
dpkg-deb —control subprocess returned error exit status 2
(which seems to be an unpack error probably caused by the unability to perform decompression of the archive).

Thanks for any help or suggestion.

PS : quick insight of the system (inxi -GS + Repos) — Kernel upgrade was necessary to allow wifi connection which didn’t work with 5.10 serie

System:    Host: asus4770 Kernel: 5.16.0-0.bpo.4-rt-amd64 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Cinnamon 5.2.7 Distro: LMDE 5 Elsie 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 4th Gen Core Processor Integrated Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Device-2: NVIDIA GM107M [GeForce GTX 850M] driver: nouveau v: kernel 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa DRI Intel HD Graphics 4600 (HSW GT2) v: 4.5 Mesa 20.3.5

Repos:     Packages: 2177 apt: 2159 flatpak: 18 
           No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
           Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
           1: deb http: //packages.linuxmint.com elsie main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
           2: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free
           3: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
           4: deb http: //security.debian.org bullseye-security main contrib non-free
           5: deb https: //deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-backports main contrib non-free 

Hello, LittleScriptMan. Hello, Abu.

Foreword:
At this point in time I can only crosscheck with LM 19.3, apturl 0.5.2+linuxmint8. LM 19.3 is not LMDE, so my findings may or may not be relevant.

Inner archive format of apturl.deb package
The inner archives in apturl 0.5.2+linuxmint8 is still .xz. No problem reading and extracting .xz archives here.
But on LMDE 4 and LMDE 5 the latest apturl 0.5.2+linuxmint12 has got inner archives of the format .zst.

In order to read .zst archives you seem to need a package simply named zstd.
By default this package is not pre-installed on LM 19.3.

I am not sure whether it will really resolve your problem.
Check whether zstd is available on your LMDE systems. Command: which zstd
In case this comes back empty, you might install zstd from the software repos.
Command: sudo apt-get install zstd
This might be sufficient to enable the Update Manager to read and install the apturl package 0.5.2+linuxmint12.
It is imaginable, however, that Update Manager will not use the commandline tool zstd, but instead some supporting library, which provides .zst archive reading capabilities.
In this case, you will have to wait for advice given by other LMDE users.

Update/Solution:
As explained in Clem’s post further down , the problem has been resolved by publishing a corrected apturl 0.5.2+linuxmint13.
So refresh your list of available software updates. It should display apturl 0.5.2+linuxmint13. The inner archives are in .xz format again. The installation should succeed.

Regards,
Karl

karlchen wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:52 am

Hello, LittleScriptMan. Hello, Abu.

Foreword:
At this point in time I can only crosscheck with LM 19.3, apturl 0.5.2+linuxmint8. LM 19.3 is not LMDE, so my findings may or may not be relevant.

Inner archive format of apturl.deb package
The inner archives in apturl 0.5.2+linuxmint8 is still .xz. No problem reading and extracting .xz archives here.
But on LMDE 4 and LMDE 5 the latest apturl 0.5.2+linuxmint12 has got inner archives of the format .zst.

In order to read .zst archives you seem to need a package simply named zstd.
By default this package is not pre-installed on LM 19.3.

I am not sure whether it will really resolve your problem.
Check whether zstd is available on your LMDE systems. Command: which zstd
In case this comes back empty, you might install zstd from the software repos.
Command: sudo apt-get install zstd
This might be sufficient to enable the Update Manager to read and install the apturl package 0.5.2+linuxmint12.
It is imaginable, however, that Update Manager will not use the commandline tool zstd, but instead some supporting library, which provides .zst archive reading capabilities.
In this case, you will have to wait for advice given by other LMDE users.

Regards,
Karl

Hi, have the same issue, after installing the zstd package, error was same after update && upgrade :/

abu wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 20, 2022 6:15 am

You’re not alone. Same here with LMDE4, but I don’t have any solution.

Was going to make an original posting but see others beat me to it. Same problem here.

While attempting to install the package sw-nginx I encountered the following error messages:

0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/327 kB of archives.
After this operation, 813 kB of additional disk space will be used.
WARNING: The following packages cannot be authenticated!
sw-nginx
Authentication warning overridden.
(Reading database ... 149469 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking sw-nginx (from .../sw-nginx_1.6.0-1.14051516.debian70_amd64.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/sw-nginx_1.6.0-1.14051516.debian70_amd64.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite '/etc/logrotate.d/nginx', which is also in package nginx 1.6.2-1~wheezy
dpkg-deb (subprocess): decompressing archive member: internal gzip write error: Broken pipe
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess <decompress> returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb (subprocess): cannot copy archive member from '/var/cache/apt/archives/sw-nginx_1.6.0-1.14051516.debian70_amd64.deb' to decompressor pipe: failed to write (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/sw-nginx_1.6.0-1.14051516.debian70_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Error: An error occurred on attempt to install packages.
Attention! Your software might be inoperable.
Please, contact product technical support.

How can I install this package?

on a Ubuntu 12.04 Server I´m trying to update PHP 5.3 to 5.5 this is what I have done:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ondrej/php5
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install php5

unfortuntely the installation ends with following error:

dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/apache2-bin_2.4.16-4+deb.sury.org~precise+4_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/man/man8/apache2.8.gz', which is also in package apache2.2-common 2.2.22-1ubuntu1.10
dpkg-deb (subprocess): subprocess data was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess <decompress> returned error exit status 2
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/apache2-bin_2.4.16-4+deb.sury.org~precise+4_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

It seems PHP 5 affects Apache 2.2 as well. Thankful for help why the subprocess was killed.

EDIT: I solved this by uninstalling apache2.2 completely and reinstalling 2.4 which worked without errors.

asked Nov 23, 2015 at 17:13

I got same problem when upgrade PHP, you can try this

sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/apache2-bin_2.4.16-4+deb.sury.org~precise+4_amd64.deb

and then install php5 by

sudo apt-get -f install php5

this will upgrade apache2, enjoy it.

answered Jan 26, 2016 at 6:23