On Sat, Jul 08, 2017 at 08:39:05PM +0800, hacker code wrote:
> dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to
> correct the problem.

The message is from apt, so the dpkg developers can't help you that much
with it (disclaimer: apt developer writing this). Of course, nobody
really can as you have provided very little detail as to what your
problem is, but okay, I guess you wonder "just" in general why apt asks
you to run dpkg manually instead of doing it automatically.

apt does distinguish here a bit between "dependencies unsatisfied but
otherwise healthy, so dpkg perhaps exited with an error" and "a previous
dpkg run seems to have crashed or was in some other way interrupted".

The later is what results in this message, the first is pretty much
hidden from the user – apt just presents a solution and if you look it
will say in the statistics something about "and X half-installed".


I can't look retroactively into the brains of past contributors who have
implemented this many years ago, but my guess is that because you can't
end up in this state without manual intervention (like killing dpkg,
causing powerloss, …) you should exit this state also manually after you
have resolved the situation – rather than having apt making it worse
automatically. Also, that would need a feedback loop, potentially asking
users, but at least the frontend if it should really be run, progress
reporting and stuff which doesn't seem to have a good price-point
compared to how often that message actually appears (apt is more than
just apt after all: All apt-frontends can display an error, but asking
interactive questions and running commands automatically from lets say
apt-cache or even some graphical package viewer would be very strange
and completely unexpected).


Best regards

David Kalnischkies

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