I am testing version 11.10 and got broken package problem when try to install some package, I try to fix it with synaptic but failed with the following message :

E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

What should I do ?

Are you sure that this in not the result of a "partial-upgrade?"

First clean & update

Then post the full output of

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I am not sure, but yes that fixed the problem thanks.

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You're welcome.

Glad to be of help.

Does "apt-get clean" will fix the dependency issue or is there any other process to fix dependencies issue on Linux.

Go to synaptic package manager.
Edit > Fix broken Packages.

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Clean is just a way to recover space. From "man apt-get";
In answer to the OP in this long dead thread they ran that, a good idea particularly in a dev release as there are a lot of upgrades everyday, along with an update. Then an upgrade.

The update/upgrade corrected the dependency problem, probably because the OP used Update Mangler to upgrade a dev system. This is not a good idea. I don't ever use UM as I don't trust it a bit.

If you have a problem along this line with a broken package the first thing to try is, as root;
which will try to install any package not properly installed in a gentle way.

If this does not work try, again as root;
no package just the command as written there. This will attempt, with brute force to install the package(s).

If those do not do it you can study the man page for dpkg or ask on the forum as you have a "special" problem. One or the other of the above should do the trick.

That is basically what Synaptic is invoking with its broken package script. It works pretty well but when you have this type of problem sometimes (probably all times) it is a good idea to do this without X running which kind of kills the option of Synaptic.

I assume you are using Ubuntu so just booting to recovery will bring you to a root prompt. You don't even have to use a password due to the wisdom of the fine Ubuntu devs who very helpfully disabled the login for the root prompt. I know that anyone wanting to get into your box will appreciate that thoughtful, helpful attitude toward security.

Just run those commands there. And hope no one gets access to your box because it is wide open. From that prompt it is easy to set a new user or to change the password for the current user.

You might want to put a password in grub to prevent folks from getting to the recovery mode. Will at least slow them down.

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Hi,
I'm also new to ubuntu and I had the same problem with one package.I use Ubuntu 11.10. After days of forums I tried aptitude and worked:

sudo aptitude install [package]

it is better that you are logged as root to function better:

sudo su
aptitude install [package]

Than follow the steps and that's it, you're done.

I hope this helps

I cannot fix the broken "gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad"

1) Trying with synaptic results in Errors:
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

2) Trying apt-get clean && sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get upgrade, dpkg --configure -a and apt-get install -f doesn't fix the package, only the message "0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded" is didplayed.

3)Finally, with aptitude, I get this result:

root@ivo-medion17:/home/ivo# apt-get install aptitude gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
aptitude is already the newest version.
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:
gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad : Depends: libgles2-mesa (>= 7.8.1) but it is not going to be installed or
libgles2
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

BTW, libgles2-mesa is also reported broke by synaptic and cannot be installed.
I am really out of ideas now, can somebody help ?

If you were trying to install your package using aptitude that is not the command to use at all. Aptitude is not a function for apt-get. It is a package manager.

As root the command would be;
I would us the purge command first and then try installing with aptitude. This should give you some alternative routes to take. Do not take the first one. For that matter keep refusing all alternatives until it runs out of them. The run the install command again and take the best one you saw out of all of them the first time around.

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Hi Widget
I followed your instructions.
I used "aptitude install" and chose the second route (not knowing where the other routes would lead to)
Package "gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad" was installed and works !
"Skype" and "Wine" were uninstalled.
I reinstalled Skype (with Ubuntu Software Center) and it works fine with my old settings.
I suppose that reinstalling wine will also be enough to use some old windows progs again.
Thanks again for your help, you're a genius !

Hi,

I followed this threat to the end but it did not work for me: I am trying to install f4l.
It says it depends on libqt3-mt but is not installable.

I tryed to fix it with synaptic but it failed with the following message :

I then tried the following:
Which seemed ok. No errors reported.

Then
Which upgraded some packages and reported no errors.

Does nothing visible.

Did not do much.

The command:
Only gave me one choice:
Which means: it installs f4l, it says it has an unsatisfied dependency with libqt3-mt which is a virtual package.
The solution is: Maintain the package on its actual version: f4l.
Then it seems to do something, but f4l does not get installed.

Thanks.
Yoram

This has nothing to do with the OP (Original Post).

You should start a new thread.

People use forum search when looking for solutions. Threads should, therefore, cover only one subject so that they will be seachable.

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had the same problem with vlc on kali linux. solve the problem by purging the offending dependancies

sudo apt-get install purge (broken dependancy goes here)

do that for every dependancy then install the program using

apt-get install (name of program here)

[INDENT] Very helpful! "Old" questions give me new insight, thanks!

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