Error Upgrading Nodejs

Question

└─# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 nodejs : Depends: libnode72 (= 12.21.0~dfsg-5) but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

When running apt --fix-broken install:

└─# apt --fix-broken install                                              100 ⨯
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libfuse3-3 libjs-highlight.js nodejs-doc
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  nodejs
The following packages will be upgraded:
  nodejs
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1133 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/26.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 122 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 413977 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../nodejs_16.9.0-deb-1nodesource1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking nodejs (16.9.0-deb-1nodesource1) over (12.21.0~dfsg-5) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/nodejs_16.9.0-deb-1nodeso
urce1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/doc/nodejs/api/process.html', which is also in 
package nodejs-doc 12.21.0~dfsg-5
dpkg-deb: error: paste subprocess was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/nodejs_16.9.0-deb-1nodesource1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

What should I do?

You've provided no OS & release details; knowing this is generally necessary to fix issues. Your package details provided in your post do **not** match any supported OS & release (could be 3rd party, but we cannot know given we don't know your OS & release details). — guiverc, Sep 09 '21 at 08:30
Does this answer your question? [dpkg error: "trying to overwrite file, which is also in..."](https://askubuntu.com/questions/176121/dpkg-error-trying-to-overwrite-file-which-is-also-in) — karel, Sep 11 '21 at 13:11

score 18 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 09 '21 at 08:39

Very rarely does this happen, but you may need to bring out the big guns for this one:

Open Terminal (if it's not already open)

Force an overwrite for the Node package:

sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/nodejs_16.9.0-deb-1nodesource1_amd64.deb

Fix the rest of the broken install:
```
sudo apt -f install
```
Make sure the rest of your system is properly up to date:
```
sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade
```

Try not to let things get crazy enough to see messages like:

1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1133 not upgraded.

Error Upgrading Nodejs

1 Answers1