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ravi
Asked: 2019-03-03 20:46:17 +0800 CST

Stuck in the loop because 'apt --fix-broken install' doesn't help while installing ROS Melodic on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

  • 772

This issue may be related to ROS completely, however, at present, I am not sure about the source of the error. Hence I am posting it in this big community.

I am trying to install ROS Melodic on Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS PC. Unfortunately, the command sudo apt install ros-melodic-desktop-full failed. Below is the output of the same command, when running again:

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt install ros-melodic-desktop-full
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
ros-melodic-desktop-full is already the newest version (1.4.1-0bionic.20190204.220757).
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 python-rosdistro-modules : Depends: python-rospkg-modules but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

It suggests running apt --fix-broken install which I did but it doesn't solve the issue. See below:

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt  --fix-broken install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libllvm6.0:i386 python-genmsg python-genpy python-roscpp-msgs python-rosgraph python-rosgraph-msgs python-std-msgs x11proto-dri2-dev x11proto-gl-dev
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  python-rospkg-modules
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  python-rospkg-modules
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 53 not upgraded.
461 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/23.4 kB of archives.
After this operation, 133 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 542662 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../python-rospkg-modules_1.1.7-1_all.deb ...
Unpacking python-rospkg-modules (1.1.7-1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/python-rospkg-modules_1.1.7-1_all.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/rospkg/manifest.py', which is also in package python-rospkg 1.1.4-1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/python-rospkg-modules_1.1.7-1_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I thought of running update and upgrade but got stuck in the same issue. Please see below:

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt update
Hit:1 http://ny-mirrors.evowise.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit:2 http://linux.teamviewer.com/deb stable InRelease                                                                                                           
Hit:3 http://ny-mirrors.evowise.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease                                                                                              
Hit:4 http://ny-mirrors.evowise.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease                                                                      
Hit:5 http://ny-mirrors.evowise.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease                                                 
Ign:6 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable InRelease                                                         
Hit:7 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release                                                                     
Hit:8 http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu bionic InRelease                                                                      
Hit:10 http://ppa.launchpad.net/danielrichter2007/grub-customizer/ubuntu bionic InRelease                              
Hit:12 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gezakovacs/ppa/ubuntu bionic InRelease                              
Hit:11 https://packagecloud.io/slacktechnologies/slack/debian jessie InRelease                       
Hit:13 http://ppa.launchpad.net/yannubuntu/boot-repair/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Reading package lists... Done 
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
53 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 python-rosdistro-modules : Depends: python-rospkg-modules but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

I also tried removing the ros-melodic-desktop-full package but got in vain as shown below:

ravi@lab:~$ sudo apt purge --remove ros-melodic-desktop-full
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 python-rosdistro-modules : Depends: python-rospkg-modules but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

I am not able to proceed. I found a possible workaround here which suggest removing python-rospkg package but it didn't work either. Please see below:

ravi@lab:~$ sudo dpkg -P python-rospkg
[sudo] password for ravi: 
dpkg: dependency problems prevent removal of python-rospkg:
 ros-melodic-roscreate depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rosunit depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-roslaunch depends on python-rospkg (>= 1.0.37); however:
  Package python-rospkg is to be removed.
 ros-melodic-rosgraph depends on python-rospkg; however:
  Package python-rospkg is to be removed.
 ros-melodic-rosbag depends on python-rospkg; however:
  Package python-rospkg is to be removed.
 ros-melodic-rqt-robot-steering depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-roslib depends on python-rospkg (>= 1.0.37).
 ros-melodic-rqt-pose-view depends on python-rospkg; however:
  Package python-rospkg is to be removed.
 ros-melodic-qt-gui-py-common depends on python-rospkg.
 python-rosdep depends on python-rospkg (>= 1.0.37); however:
  Package python-rospkg is to be removed.
 ros-melodic-rqt-publisher depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-console depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rosmake depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-plot depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-qt-gui depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-msg depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rosclean depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-roswtf depends on python-rospkg; however:
  Package python-rospkg is to be removed.
 ros-melodic-rospy depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-graph depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-robot-monitor depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-service-caller depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-runtime-monitor depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-py-console depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-resource-retriever depends on python-rospkg; however:
  Package python-rospkg is to be removed.
 ros-melodic-rqt-dep depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-tf-tree depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rosmsg depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-web depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-bag depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-shell depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-topic depends on python-rospkg.
 ros-melodic-rqt-logger-level depends on python-rospkg.

dpkg: error processing package python-rospkg (--purge):
 dependency problems - not removing
Errors were encountered while processing:
 python-rospkg

I have no clue now about fixing it. Below is the more information about the PC:

ravi@lab:~$ python --version
Python 2.7.15rc1

ravi@lab:~$ uname -a
Linux lab 4.15.0-45-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jan 29 16:28:13 UTC 2019 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
ravi@lab:~$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS \n \l

Any workaround, please?

package-management apt ros 18.04

4 Answers

  1. sudo dpkg -r --force-all python-rospkg

    Afterwards, sudo apt --fix-broken install If you wanna reinstall ros, run sudo apt-get remove ros-* to remove ros. Then, install ROS from https://wiki.ros.org/ROS/Installation

    • 5

  2. I ran into this same issue, and wrote a script to delete the ros installation packages. I had to run it multiple times like this until there was no output.

    Here is the script

    import os
import sys
import re

data = sys.stdin.read()
lines = data.split('\n')

pkgPat = " [a-zA-Z0-9\-]* : Depends: .*"
pkgNamePat = " [a-zA-Z0-9\-]* :"

relLines = []
for line in lines:
    if(re.match(pkgPat, line) is not None):
        relLines.append(line)

for line in relLines:
    pkg = re.search(pkgNamePat, line)[0][1:-2]
    if pkg is not None:
        os.system('sudo dpkg -r --force-all ' + pkg)
    else:
        print("None: " + line)

    Run it multiple times until there is no output with (the script is named fixros.py:

    sudo apt-get autoremove | fixros.py
    • 3

  3. I faced the same issue, it is due to broken packages and prompt suggests you to run apt --fix-broken install, but it returns:

    E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

    And also lists some ".deb" files as can't overwrite. You can fix this issue by running

    sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite [packaage full path]

    In this case, it would be:

    sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite  /var/cache/apt/archives/python-rospkg-modules_1.1.7-1_all.deb

    It solved all the errors. Let me know if it works for you as well!

    • 1

  4. Just do :

    sudo dpkg -P --force-all PACKAGETOREMOVE
sudo apt --fix-broken install
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get autoremove
    • 0