Bug 183485 – emerge world doesn't always give full information as to why a package is blocked

• Status: RESOLVED INVALID
• Product: Portage Development

[Description Alan McKinnon 2007-06-28 07:50:02 UTC]

I have vmware-player-2.0.0.45731 installed from the layman overlay.
This package.mask entry was recently made for vmware-player:

- app-emulation/vmware-player-2.0.0.45731 (masked by: package.mask)
# Mike Auty <[e-mail]> (24 Jun 2007)
# Masked for about a week, for testing

The result is that my next 'emerge -u world' failed because of these blockers:

[ebuild     UD] app-emulation/vmware-player-1.0.3.34682-r1 [2.0.0.45731] 37,961 kB
[ebuild     UD] app-emulation/vmware-modules-1.0.0.15-r1 [1.0.0.16] 0 kB [2]
[blocks B     ] >=app-emulation/vmware-modules-1.0.0.16 (is blocking app-emulation/vmware-player-1.0.3.34682-r1)
[blocks B     ] <app-emulation/vmware-modules-1.0.0.16 (is blocking app-emulation/vmware-player-2.0.0.45731)

Total: 47 packages (37 upgrades, 2 downgrades, 1 in new slot, 7 reinstalls, 2 blocks), Size of downloads: 251,610 kB
Portage overlays:
 [1] /var/portage/local/layman/enlightenment
 [2] /var/portage/local/layman/vmware
 [3] /var/portage/local/alan

!!! Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be installed
!!!        at the same time on the same system.

For more information about Blocked Packages, please refer to the following
section of the Gentoo Linux x86 Handbook (architecture is irrelevant):

http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1#blocked

It took a while to realise it was a new package.mask, I was expecting emerge world to behave the same as if I gave a specific atom:

alan@nazgul /var/log/portage/elog $ sudo emerge -av =vmware-player-2.0.0.45731

These are the packages that would be merged, in order:

Calculating dependencies \
!!! All ebuilds that could satisfy "=vmware-player-2.0.0.45731" have been masked.
!!! One of the following masked packages is required to complete your request:
- app-emulation/vmware-player-2.0.0.45731 (masked by: package.mask)

A similar output from emerge -u world would be useful

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. package.mask any installed package with a lower version available in portage
2. emerge -u world
3. compare output to that from emerge <category><package> atom

Actual Results:  
Output lacks information. I can see that vmware-player-2 is blocked, but can't see why

Expected Results:  
emerge -u world output should display that vmware-player-2 is blocked due to a package.mask

alan@nazgul /var/log/portage/elog $ emerge --info
Portage 2.1.3_rc4 (default-linux/x86/2007.0/desktop, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.5-r3, 2.6.20-vs2.3.0.11-gentoo i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.20-vs2.3.0.11-gentoo i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 2.00GHz
Gentoo Base System release 1.12.10
Timestamp of tree: Wed, 27 Jun 2007 16:00:01 +0000
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.0.33-r1
dev-lang/python:     2.4.4-r4
dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5
dev-util/ccache:     2.4-r7
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.18.1
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.61
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10
sys-devel/binutils:  2.17
sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.16
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.23b
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.21
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-m -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/php/apache2-php4/ext-active/ /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php4/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php4/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c"
CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium-m -pipe"
DISTDIR="/var/distfiles"
FEATURES="ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="/mnt/distfiles http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo"
LINGUAS="af en en_GB en_US en_ZA"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/var/packages"
PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --filter=H_**/files/digest-*"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/var/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/var/portage/local/layman/enlightenment /var/portage/local/layman/vmware /var/portage/local/alan"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="X a52 aac aalib acl acpi adns aiglx alsa apache2 apm audiofile avahi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cdr cli cracklib crypt cups curl curlwrappers dbus dbx dga directfb dri dts dv dvb dvd dvdr dvdread encode etk ewl fam fbcon ffmpeg firebird firefox flac foomaticdb freetds ftp gd gdbm gif gimp glitz gnome gnutls gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml hal howl iconv imagemagick imap imlib irda irmc jabber java javascript jbig jce jpeg jpeg2k kde kdeenablefinal keyring lcms lesstif libc_glibc libcaca libg++ libnotify libwww lm_sensors mad maildir matroska mbox mcal midi mikmod milter mime mmx mng motif mp3 mpeg mudflap mysql mysqli ncurses netboot networkmanager nfs nptl nsplugin odbc offensive ogg openal opengl openmp pam pango pcmcia pcre pdf perl php plotutils pmu png posix postgres ppds pppd profile python qt3 qt3support quicktime readline real reflection samba scanner sdl session slp sms spell spl sqlite sqlite3 sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg sysvipc tcl tcltk tcpd tetex theora threads tiff tk truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb utempter vcd vim-syntax vorbis wifi win32codecs wmf wxwindows x264 x86 xattr xcomposite xine xinetd xml xorg xosd xpm xv xvid xvmc zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse synaptics evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="af en en_GB en_US en_ZA" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="fbdev radeon vesa vga"
Unset:  CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS

[Comment 1 Zac Medico 2007-06-28 07:58:43 UTC]

This is similar to bug 174509.

[Comment 2 Marius Mauch (RETIRED) 2007-06-29 06:20:48 UTC]

I consider this one invalid, the downgrade notification should be warning enough to check things. Can't make emerge explain every possible situation in detail, that attempt would end in a huge if-elif mess. Or what specific conditions should trigger the "higher version is masked by" notification you request?
Zac, I don't quite see the relation to bug 174509. We already have a notification if a different version is selected, we even have a whole column in the status display dedicated to it.

[Comment 3 Alan McKinnon 2007-06-29 07:37:53 UTC]

(In reply to comment #2)
> I consider this one invalid, the downgrade notification should be warning
> enough to check things. Can't make emerge explain every possible situation in
> detail, that attempt would end in a huge if-elif mess. Or what specific
> conditions should trigger the "higher version is masked by" notification you
> request?

OK, I see what you are getting at. The circumstance that triggered the block is quite rare, so it probably is better to just leave things as they are.