nodered preinst script fails if nodered was not already installed

[antoneliasson]

nodered 2.2.3-2 packaged for bullseye on http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian contains this preinst script:

#!/bin/sh -e
service nodered stop >/dev/null 2>&1; exit 0

The invocation of service fails with exit status 5 if nodered was not already installed, because the nodered service does not exist. Due to sh -e the whole script terminates early, causing apt to fail the installation:

Selecting previously unselected package nodered.
Preparing to unpack .../273-nodered_2.2.3-2_armhf.deb ...
dpkg: error processing archive /tmp/apt-dpkg-install-5RPgJ8/273-nodered_2.2.3-2_armhf.deb (--unpack):
 new nodered package pre-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 5

One way to fix it is to change the preinst script to

#!/bin/sh -e
service nodered stop || true

so that the return status from service is ignored. I tested this locally by manually repackaging the deb archive and installing it with dpkg. Afterwards I was able to "upgrade" to the version from apt without errors.

[antoneliasson]

Ping maintainer @dceejay

[dceejay]

Thanks - will update the script.

[audax1764]

For any non-advanced user like me who might fall into this pithole (current raspbian seems to still ship the broken version), here's how I applied the fix mentioned by @antoneliasson:

# Download package into current directory
apt-get download nodered

# Unpack into temporary dir
mkdir tmp
dpkg-deb -R nodered_2.2.3-2_armhf.deb tmp

# Now, edit the script
nano tmp/DEBIAN/preinst

# Repack deb file
dpkg-deb -b tmp nodered_2.2.3-2_armhf.deb

# Install fixed deb file
sudo dpkg -i nodered_2.2.3-2_armhf.deb