I used 'dpkg' to downgrade from 'cupsys' v1.3.5-1 to v1.3.4-4, but the
downgrade produced the same bug, (100% CPU unkillable 'index++'
stall). Which implies 'cupsys' is not the problem.
During an upgrade of a couple hundred packages the other night, the same
bug occurred with other packages, such as:
slib (3a5-3)
maint-guide (1.2.12)
gimp-help-en (2.4.0-2)
...and others. It's hard to imagine how 'cupsys' could cause that.
Perhaps this bug's 'severity' should be worse than 'important'. It
breaks 'apt-get' too, since after the error 'apt-get' fails and
suggests running 'dpkg --configure -a' which also fails. (Plain 'dpkg'
still works.)
More online searching revealed this harmless-looking bug:
#455731 dhelp cron failed
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=455731
I tried the '/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/dhelp.rb' patch suggested there, (see
attached .diff), and it helped (in an odd way):
% dpkg -i cupsys_1.3.5-1_i386.deb
{ ...etc... }
Preparing to replace cupsys 1.3.4-4 (using .../cupsys_1.3.5-1_i386.deb)
...
Stopping Common Unix Printing System: cupsd.
Unpacking replacement cupsys ...
Setting up cupsys (1.3.5-1) ...
Dhelp::IndexerError: Couldn't index /var/lib/doc-base/documents/cupsys
using /usr/bin/index++ --config-file /usr/share/dhelp/swish++.conf --index-file
/var/lib/dhelp/documents.index --incremental -
(/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/dhelp.rb:368:in `index'
/usr/sbin/dhelp_parse:112:in `main'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/commandline/application.rb:250:in `run'
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/commandline/application.rb:269:in `__set_auto_run'
/usr/sbin/dhelp_parse:93)
Starting Common Unix Printing System: cupsd.
...that is the patch is inapplicable, buggy, or maybe I typed it in
wrong, and it breaks '/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/dhelp.rb'; but that breakage
prevents the 100% CPU unkillable process. After the patch 'dpkg
--configure -a' worked, which fixed 'apt-get'. Some document index
aren't updated, but that's the lesser of two evils.
Bugs #46139 & #455731 seem somehow related; should they be merged? If not,
to what other package might this bug belong?
HTH...
--- /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/dhelp.rb 2007-12-06 12:06:00.000000000 -0500
+++ /tmp/1.8/dhelp.rb 2008-01-20 01:56:56.000000000 -0500
@@ -127,7 +127,7 @@
end
def files
- @files.strip.split(/\s+/)
+ @files.to_s.strip.split(/\s+/)
end
end
@@ -384,6 +384,7 @@
@pool.each do |doc|
doc.formats.each do |format|
next unless SUPPORTED_FORMATS.include? format.format.downcase
+ puts "processing files for #{doc.document}'s format #{format.format}"
format.files.each do |glob|
# Dirnames can be globs too. There will also be duplicates
# (different formats, same doc), hence the set
