Trouble updating my ports, how to fix this?

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Sep 26, 2011, at 11:40, Peer Stritzinger wrote:

> after a pause I wanted to update my outdated ports, so I tried the usual steps:
> 
> I did a port selfupdate:
> 
>     MacPorts base version 1.9.2 installed,
>     MacPorts base version 2.0.3 downloaded.
>     --->  MacPorts base is outdated, installing new version 2.0.3
> 
> and the tried a port upgrade which came to a stop with the following error message:
> 
> --->  Building perl5
> --->  Staging perl5 into destroot
> --->  Installing perl5 @5.12.3_1+perl5_12
> --->  Activating perl5 @5.12.3_1+perl5_12
> Error: Target org.macports.activate returned: Image error: /opt/local/bin/a2p is being used by the active perl5.8 port.  Please deactivate this port first, or use 'port -f activate perl5' to force the activation.
> Log for perl5 is at: /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_release_ports_lang_perl5/perl5/main.log
> Error: Problem while installing perl5
> To report a bug, see <http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets>
> 
> I tried the deactivation suggestion of the error message first:
> 
> yrael:~ peer$ sudo port deactivate perl5.8
> 
> --->  Deactivating perl5.8 @5.8.8_3+darwin_8+darwin_9
> --->  Unable to deactivate perl5.8 @5.8.8_3+darwin_8+darwin_9, the following ports depend on it:
> --->  	autoconf @2.62_0
> --->  	automake @1.10.1_0
> --->  	help2man @1.36.4_1
> --->  	intltool @0.40.5_0
> --->  	p5-locale-gettext @1.05_0
> --->  	p5-xml-parser @2.36_0
> Error: port deactivate failed: Please uninstall the ports that depend on perl5.8 first.

The correct solution was to upgrade perl5.8 first.

sudo port upgrade perl5.8

Then the perl5.12 upgrade would have succeeded.


> Since this didn't seem to help I tried the "-f activate" path:
> 
> yrael:~ peer$ sudo port -f activate perl5
> --->  Computing dependencies for perl5
> --->  Activating perl5 @5.12.3_1+perl5_12
> ... a bunch of warnings about existing files followed.

Now that you've forced the activation, some things may be out of place. I'd do the following to ensure it's fixed:

sudo port -f deactivate perl5.12 perl5.8
sudo port upgrade perl5.12 perl5.8
sudo port activate perl5.12 @5.12.3_2+universal perl5.8 @5.8.9_5


> Trying to continue with the upgrade resulted in the next error message:
> 
> --->  Activating gettext @0.18.1.1_2
> --->  Cleaning gettext
> --->  Computing dependencies for help2man
> Error: Dependency 'p5.12-locale-gettext' not found.
> Error: Unable to upgrade port: 1
> To report a bug, see <http://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets>
> 
> I found a ticket that mentions this error message but there was no solution how to fix this in a installation.


Your first selfupdate updated the version of MacPorts base. You must now run selfupdate a second time so that your ports get indexed properly. Your previous version of MacPorts did not include instructions to do that, but the current version does.