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ravi
Asked: 2018-05-31 05:38:27 +0800 CST

Stuck in infinite loop of unmet dependencies due to broken packages

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I posted this question in SO but found no suggestion. Hence I am posting it here for the hope. This question may appear duplicate of others however, I have tried their solutions but couldn't get any success. I recently removed ROS Indigo using the following command-

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get remove ros-*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.

Now, I needed it. So I tried installing it again using the following command-

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-desktop-full
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 ros-indigo-desktop-full : Depends: ros-indigo-perception but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Unfortunately, the above didn't work. So I tried installing dependencies but got no success-

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.
ravi@lab:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 9 not upgraded.

I tried installing the dependency ros-indigo-perception manually but no chance-

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-perception
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 ros-indigo-perception : Depends: ros-indigo-perception-pcl but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I tried more and thought of installing another dependency ros-indigo-perception-pcl but got in vain-

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-perception-pcl
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 ros-indigo-perception-pcl : Depends: ros-indigo-pcl-conversions but it is not going to be installed
                             Depends: ros-indigo-pcl-ros but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Still trying without any success -

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-pcl-conversions
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 ros-indigo-pcl-conversions : Depends: libpcl-1.7-all but it is not going to be installed
                              Depends: libpcl-1.7-all-dev but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get install libpcl-1.7-all
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libpcl-1.7-all : Depends: libpcl-1.7-all-dev but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt-get install libpcl-1.7-all-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libpcl-1.7-all-dev : Depends: libpcl-apps-1.7-dev but it is not going to be installed
                      Depends: libpcl-io-1.7-dev but it is not going to be installed
                      Depends: libpcl-outofcore-1.7-dev but it is not going to be installed
                      Depends: libpcl-people-1.7-dev but it is not going to be installed
                      Depends: libpcl-recognition-1.7-dev but it is not going to be installed
                      Depends: libpcl-visualization-1.7-dev but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

My objective is to install ROS Indigo on my Ubuntu 14.04 LTS PC (without reinstalling OS :D )

Any workaround, please?

package-management dependencies apt ros 14.04

2 Answers

  1. Try 

    sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

    and after

    sudo apt install -f

    or you can try 

    sudo apt autoremove

    There is some chance the update helps you to fix your dependencies issues

    • 0
  2. Best Answer

    I fixed it finally. I had to dig more into it and I finally realized that the problem is occurring due to libusb.

    In order to fix this issue, I first removed libusb (sorry, I didn't remember exact version at present). After that, I run apt-get autoclean. Then apt-get update and apt-get upgrade just to make sure everything is at the correct place.

    Finally, I used sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-desktop-full and it worked.

    Note

    After restarting PC, the login doesn't work and it says Failed to start sesssion. Don't panic, during the login screen press CTRL+ALT+F1. It will take you to the terminal. Use your username and password to login. Finally restore the desktop using following command sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

    • 0