Termux-packages: dpkg error: size has changed from X to Y

Created on 20 Nov 2016 · 14Comments · Source: termux/termux-packages

Just updated my installed packages and vim failed to update with the error:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  vim vim-runtime
2 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4422 kB of archives.
After this operation, 16.4 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Get:1 http://termux.net stable/main all vim-runtime all 8.0.0092 [3715 kB]
Get:2 http://termux.net stable/main aarch64 vim aarch64 8.0.0092 [707 kB]
Fetched 4422 kB in 1s (3571 kB/s)
(Reading database ... 2024 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../vim-runtime_8.0.0092_all.deb ...
Unpacking vim-runtime (8.0.0092) over (8.0.0055) ...
Preparing to unpack .../vim_8.0.0092_aarch64.deb ...
Unpacking vim (8.0.0092) over (8.0.0055) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/var/cache/apt/archives/vim_8.0.0092_aarch64.deb (--unpack):
symbolic link '/data/data/com.termux/files/usr/share/man/man1/view.1' size has changed from 18 to 5
Processing triggers for man (1.13.4-3) ...
E: Sub-process /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I've seen this with other packages before, I usually get round the problem with removing the package and reinstalling. Is there a way to get this to update cleanly?

bug report

Source

skymoo

Most helpful comment

@fornwall Confirmed it works for me.

mlanner on 3 Dec 2016

👍2

All 14 comments

Hm, I never encountered this issue myself, but I remember other being hit by it.

A temporary workaround is either to do the remove&reinstall as you do, or (according to the link) remove the offending symlink.

fornwall on 20 Nov 2016

@skymoo Which device and Android version is this? Do you have filesystem encryption enabled?

fornwall on 26 Nov 2016

Reference: https://github.com/corbinlc/GNURootDebian/issues/103

Found out something: the issue is that dpkg assumes that a file's st_size matches the length of the string returned by readlink(). [..]
On this Android N device, this isn't the case: [..]
Might have to do with file-based encryption being enabled on this Android N device - however, regular files (non-symlinks) don't exhibit this behavior.

This will perhaps be fixed in dpkg 1.18.6 shortly:

For dpkg 1.18.16 (which should happen in a couple of days at most) I'll probably relax the check and allow size differences that are shorter than expected, but still emit a warning. Hope this makes the current situation for now more bearable.

fornwall on 26 Nov 2016

I'm using a Google Pixel, so it's using FBE.

skymoo on 26 Nov 2016

+1, and I added an issue here:

https://github.com/termux/termux-app/issues/204

... which might have been the wrong place. If so, please feel free to remove it.

Also on a Pixel.

mlanner on 3 Dec 2016

I too am having this issue on my Google Pixel. I didn't have this problem on my previous phone, a Nexus 5.

dbdahl on 3 Dec 2016

@skymoo @dbdahl @mlanner @h6y3: I've updated dpkg to version 1.18.15 with a local patch to work around the issue. Can you try it out by installing dpkg manually with:

wget http://termux.net/dists/stable/main/binary-aarch64/dpkg_1.18.15_aarch64.deb
dpkg -i dpkg_1.18.15_aarch64.deb

and then see if

apt update && apt upgrade

now works?

fornwall on 3 Dec 2016

@fornwall Confirmed it works for me.

mlanner on 3 Dec 2016

👍2

@mlanner Great! I've updated the bootstrap packages that are initially installed to this dpkg version, so new installs should not be hit by this issue.

For those already affected: Either do the manual dpkg update above, or do a complete re-install of the app.

fornwall on 3 Dec 2016

@fornwall Works for me. Thanks for a great app!

dbdahl on 4 Dec 2016

Thanks for the fix, awesome app

h6y3 on 4 Dec 2016

Thanks, I'm not seeing this issue presently as I worked around it when I last saw it. However I did do a complete reinstall of the app a couple of hours ago as I accidentally removed apt, not sure how I managed that. As you can imagine that didn't end well, hence reinstalling the app. :-)

If I see this problem again I'll update this ticket.

skymoo on 4 Dec 2016

FYI, I just got hit with this issue when apt tried to update busybox. Manually installing the new dpkg (conveniently already in apt's package cache) solved the issue.

hackel on 21 Dec 2016

I have a dpkg: warning: symbolic link
and when I tried ls -la /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/lib/libintl.so
I got No such file or directory
My dpkg version Debian 'dpkg' package management program version 1.19.7 (aarch64).
This is free software; see the GNU General Public License version 2 or
later for copying conditions. There is NO warranty.
My mobile phone is Oppo f11