[SOLVED] Opera uninstalled itself

[aparigraha]

I still use the browser Opera on one older laptop (Mint 13 KDE 64. ) for some pages and issues where other browsers fall short. Today opera uninstalled itself.
Trying to re-install it:

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sudo apt-get install opera

Gives this:

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The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 opera : Depends: gstreamer0.10-plugins-good but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Checking a bit furhter:

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sudo aptitude install opera

Gives this:

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The following NEW packages will be installed:
  adobe-flash-properties-gtk{a} adobe-flashplugin{a} glib-networking{a} gstreamer0.10-plugins-good{a} 
  libsoup-gnome2.4-1{a} libsoup2.4-1{a} opera 
0 packages upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 23.2 MB of archives. After unpacking 72.6 MB will be used.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libglib2.0-0 : Breaks: glib-networking (< 2.33.12) but 2.32.1-1ubuntu2 is to be installed.
 mint-flashplugin : Conflicts: flashplugin-nonfree which is a virtual package.
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

     Remove the following packages:                       
1)     mint-flashplugin                                   

     Keep the following packages at their current version:
2)     glib-networking [Not Installed]                    
3)     gstreamer0.10-plugins-good [Not Installed]         
4)     libsoup-gnome2.4-1 [Not Installed]                 
5)     libsoup2.4-1 [Not Installed]                       
6)     opera [Not Installed]

Looks like a lot of digging. Quick ideas anyone?

[karlchen]

Hello, aparigraha.

Today opera uninstalled itself.

This is pretty unlikely. On Linux Mint software is installed / uninstalled by apt-get / aptitude. Most of the time you as a user will see and use their graphical interfaces: mintInstall, mintUpdate, Synaptic, Software Manager.
What may have happened is that you (un)installed some software or allowed an update to be installed that as an unnoticied side effect removed Opera.

Trying to re-install it:

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sudo apt-get install opera

If you absolutely must use the commandline then make it a habit to execute

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sudo apt-get update

first and before executing

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sudo apt-get install opera

OK, could you try it this way, please.

Kind regards,
Karl

[aparigraha]

Yes, it is unlikely and quite an imprecise explanation from my part. Sorry about that. It is of course more likely a side effect of the command I regularly use to update:

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sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y upgrade && sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade

This was done a day ago, and when the machine restarted the Opera package had been removed.
Updated again to be sure, and tried to install opera again, both through gui and cli. The result is what made me post in the first place, shoud have been more clear about my original position.

Once again trying:

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sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install opera

Gives me same issue again:

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Reading package lists... Done
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:
 opera : Depends: gstreamer0.10-plugins-good but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Thanks a lot for your time and effort!

[karlchen]

Hello, aparigraha.

It may have been the

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sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

that had the side effect of removing Opera. dist-upgrade tries to be smart, but sometimes comes to incorrect conclusions.

Anyway.
The package which seems to prevent Opera from being re-installed is gstreamer0.10-plugins-good .

I wonder whether these commandlines will work:

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sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --install-recommends opera

Just for reference reasons, i.e. you might compare it to your own list, here is which gstreamer0.10-plugins dpkg finds on my Mint 13 x64:

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$dpkg --list gstreamer0.10-plugins*
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                        Version                     Description
+++-===========================-===========================-======================================================================
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad   0.10.22.3-2ubuntu2.2        GStreamer plugins from the "bad" set
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-m 0.10.21-1                   GStreamer plugins from the "bad" set (Multiverse Variant)
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-base  0.10.36-1ubuntu0.1          GStreamer plugins from the "base" set
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-base- 0.10.36-1ubuntu0.1          GStreamer helper programs from the "base" set
un  gstreamer0.10-plugins-farsi <none>                      (no description available)
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-good  0.10.31-1ubuntu1.2          GStreamer plugins from the "good" set
un  gstreamer0.10-plugins-good- <none>                      (no description available)
un  gstreamer0.10-plugins-reall <none>                      (no description available)
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly  0.10.18.3-1ubuntu1          GStreamer plugins from the "ugly" set

Oh, yes, Opera is present and functional:

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$ dpkg --list opera*
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                        Version                     Description
+++-===========================-===========================-======================================================================
ii  opera                       12.16.1860-1linuxmint       Fast and secure web browser and Internet suite

HTH,
Karl

[aparigraha]

Seems reasonable. Here's what I have:

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dpkg --list gstreamer0.10-plugins*
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                          Version                       Description
+++-=============================-=============================-==========================================================================
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad     0.10.22.3-2ubuntu2.2          GStreamer plugins from the "bad" set
un  gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-dbg <none>                        (no description available)
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-mul 0.10.21-1                     GStreamer plugins from the "bad" set (Multiverse Variant)
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-base    0.10.36-1ubuntu0.1            GStreamer plugins from the "base" set
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-ap 0.10.36-1ubuntu0.1            GStreamer helper programs from the "base" set
un  gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-db <none>                        (no description available)
un  gstreamer0.10-plugins-farsigh <none>                        (no description available)
rc  gstreamer0.10-plugins-good    0.10.31-1ubuntu1.2            GStreamer plugins from the "good" set
un  gstreamer0.10-plugins-good-do <none>                        (no description available)
un  gstreamer0.10-plugins-really- <none>                        (no description available)
ii  gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly    0.10.18.3-1ubuntu1            GStreamer plugins from the "ugly" set

and opera:

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Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                          Version                       Description
+++-=============================-=============================-==========================================================================
rc  opera                         12.16.1860-1linuxmint         Fast and secure web browser and Internet suite

Opera settings dir is still present under ~/.opera. Opera is not funcional.

I was also looking at probable different versions of gstreamer0.10-plugins-good through:

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apt-cache policy gstreamer0.10-plugins-good

Which got me:

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gstreamer0.10-plugins-good:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.10.31-1ubuntu1.2
  Version table:
     0.10.31-1ubuntu1.2 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.10.31-1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages

I just can't install gstreamer0.10-plugins-good without installing libsoup-gnome2.4-1 and libsoup2.4-1, and diving deeper, this requires me to install glib-networking, which requires me to remove a HUGE list of stuff, among them gstreamer0.10*

And yes, the below command gives me the same gstreamer0.10 error:

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sudo apt-get install --install-recommends opera

What am I mising here?

[karlchen]

Hello, aparigraha.

Weird.
Have just checked on this Mint 13 32-bit machine here:
gstreamer0.10-plugins-good, libsoup-gnome2.4-1, libsoup2.4-1, glib-networking* are all present here. Synaptic confirms so.
Yet, I fail to find any dependency of gstreamer0.10-plugins-good on the other mentioned packages.
So I tend to assume some dependencies may have got a little bit mixed up on your system, for whichever reason.

What does

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sudo apt-get check

return?

You might also try

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sudo aptitude why opera

and

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sudo aptitude why-not opera

in order to learn about potential depeendencies when installing Opera respectively about reasons why Opera cannot be installed. why/why-not will not fix the found issues.

As aptitude sometimes can execute a job successfully which apt-get will not, you might try this as a simulation

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sudo aptitude --safe-resolver --without-recommends --simulate install opera

and provided the dry-run looks fine, i.e. does not want to uninstall a ton of packages, you might really run it by executing

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sudo aptitude --safe-resolver --without-recommends install opera

Karl

[aparigraha]

Hello, aparigraha.

Weird.
Have just checked on this Mint 13 32-bit machine here:
gstreamer0.10-plugins-good, libsoup-gnome2.4-1, libsoup2.4-1, glib-networking* are all present here. Synaptic confirms so.
Yet, I fail to find any dependency of gstreamer0.10-plugins-good on the other mentioned packages.
So I tend to assume some dependencies may have got a little bit mixed up on your system, for whichever reason.

Hmm. So now I know where I might be heading, but it sounds strange

What does

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sudo apt-get check

return?

It gives me:

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done

You might also try

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sudo aptitude why opera

and

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sudo aptitude why-not opera

in order to learn about potential depeendencies when installing Opera respectively about reasons why Opera cannot be installed. why/why-not will not fix the found issues.

Well, why/why-not is a new one for me. Thanks. They give me the following:

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sudo aptitude why opera
i   gecko-mediaplayer Depends iceweasel | firefox | iceape-browser | epiphany-browser | galeon | xulrunner-1.9.1 | xulrunner-1.9.2 | konqueror 
                              (>= 4:4) | opera (>= 9.50) | chromium-browser (> 4.0) 

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sudo aptitude why-not opera
p   man-db:i386 Provides  man-db          
p   man-db:i386 Suggests  www-browser:i386
p   opera:i386  Provides  www-browser:i386
p   opera:i386  Conflicts opera   

Not really sure what that means though. p opera:i386 Conflicts opera does not really tell me much. Perhaps you can help me here?

As aptitude sometimes can execute a job successfully which apt-get will not, you might try this as a simulation

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sudo aptitude --safe-resolver --without-recommends --simulate install opera

and provided the dry-run looks fine, i.e. does not want to uninstall a ton of packages, you might really run it by executing

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sudo aptitude --safe-resolver --without-recommends install opera

Karl

The dry run gives me No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.

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sudo aptitude --safe-resolver --without-recommends --simulate install opera
Resolving dependencies...                
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.
Would download/install/remove packages.

So I was not really expecting the live run to pull through

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sudo aptitude --safe-resolver --without-recommends install opera
Resolving dependencies...                
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.

And no, it didn't work.

Really appreciate your time and input here Karl!
I'm humbly open to more suggestions

[kukamuumuka]

I'm humbly open to more suggestions

Download Opera from here, and install it via command line.
32 -bit

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sudo dpkg --force-depends -i opera_12.16.1860_i386.deb

64-bit

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sudo dpkg --force-depends -i opera_12.16.1860_amd64.deb

[aparigraha]

Thanks administrollaattori

Had it downloaded already but figured forcing it might break other dependencies. So I didn't even try it.
Since I didn't have any more options at hand, I ran the 64-bit command.

Opera is now running.
Why/why-not gives the same results as earlier.

I guess I might be seeing this again with future updates. Any ideas why this happened, and how to prevent it in the future?

[karlchen]

Hello, aparigraha.

I assume that the reason why administrollaattori's post and in particular his command

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sudo dpkg --force-depends -i opera_12.16.1860_amd64.deb

solved your issue while my advice had not done so is that administrollaattori really forced dpkg to install the dependencies, while my commands left the decisions to apt-get and aptitude.

As the dependency problems have been solved now it is not likely that they will simply re-appear out of nowhere.

I would, however, stay away from "apt-get -y dist-upgrade", because it will allow "dist-upgrade" to perform even destructive actions without asking for your permission.
Under normal circumstances, "apt-get upgrade" should be perfectly sufficient. And it is 99,9% unlikely to break any dependencies.

Kind regards,
Karl

[aparigraha]

Hey Karl

Well opera is still listed as a broken package, so I guess we will have to wait and see.
The dependencies listed on my machine earlier, have not been installed. And from what I gather by --force-depends, dependencies have just been turned into warnings, hence the broken package i reckon.

apt-get -y dist-upgrade is not used all the time. But when I see there is a dist-upgrade awaiting I usually run it.

Hey, I really appreciated your patience in helping me out, and your efforts gave me some new insights. I value that - thanks again!

[karlchen]

Hello, aparigraha.

Well opera is still listed as a broken package

Hm, not really pleased to learn it is. How did you find out? By running

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sudo apt-get check

Cheers,
Karl

[aparigraha]

Hello, aparigraha.

Well opera is still listed as a broken package

Hm, not really pleased to learn it is. How did you find out? By running

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sudo apt-get check

Cheers,
Karl

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sudo apt-get check

Gives me no errors.
Synaptic shows opera as broken.
It looks like I'm having serious issues here. Skype disappeared as well.

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sudo apt-get install skype

Gives similar issues:

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The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 skype : Depends: skype-bin
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

So I removed the broken opera package to list held broken packages. But I can't find any held broken packages.

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sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep hold

Nothing.

[aparigraha]

Had som serious apt/repository problems, that I went in to further. Firstly, I checked possible i386/amd64 architecture problems, but that did not help. I then went on to ppa-purge all ppa's (just a few). My system wouldn't let me, said it couldn't find any ppa's.

Solved it later using the following method:

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sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences

Added three lines of code to pin packages:

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Package: *       
Pin: release a=precise*
Pin-Priority: 2012

ctrl+o [Enter]
ctrl+x
(To save and exit nano)

After that I did a dist upgrade, which effectively meant many downgraded packages.

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sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

I had to restart the machinge, and I then installed the pinned version of ia32-libs

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sudo apt-get install ia32-libs-multiarch

After I updated my system, I removed the three lines of code from above by deleting the whole file:

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sudo rm /etc/apt/preferences

Installed skype and opera, no problem.

Thanks Karl for your time!