Package: aptitude Version: 0.8.7-1 Severity: normal Let's choose a package tha is a candidate for upgrade (previous testing version is installed, and more recent than current stable version).
If I select it for upgrade to testing and quit aptitude, the selected version is still selected when I launch aptitude again. Now if I select it for downgrade and quit, then on next launch not only the downgrading choice is lost, but the package is now selected for *upgrade*. Combine this with a bug like #874012, where for some reason it seems to reset selections as if user had quit and relaunched, and a time-consuming selection of packages while attempting to restore a broken situation just gets frustratingly lost. -- Package-specific info: Terminal: screen $DISPLAY is set. which aptitude: /usr/bin/aptitude aptitude version information: aptitude 0.8.7 Compiler: g++ 6.3.0 20170406 Compiled against: apt version 5.0.1 NCurses version 6.0 libsigc++ version: 2.10.0 Gtk+ support disabled. Qt support disabled. Current library versions: NCurses version: ncurses 6.0.20161126 cwidget version: 0.5.17 Apt version: 5.0.1 aptitude linkage: linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007fff74bd9000) libapt-pkg.so.5.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libapt-pkg.so.5.0 (0x00007f5ba304c000) libncursesw.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libncursesw.so.5 (0x00007f5ba2e1c000) libtinfo.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libtinfo.so.5 (0x00007f5ba2bf2000) libsigc-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsigc-2.0.so.0 (0x00007f5ba29eb000) libcwidget.so.3 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcwidget.so.3 (0x00007f5ba26f0000) libsqlite3.so.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libsqlite3.so.0 (0x00007f5ba23e3000) libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_iostreams.so.1.62.0 (0x00007f5ba21cb000) libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_filesystem.so.1.62.0 (0x00007f5ba1fb2000) libboost_system.so.1.62.0 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.62.0 (0x00007f5ba1dae000) libxapian.so.30 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libxapian.so.30 (0x00007f5ba199a000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f5ba177d000) libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007f5ba13fa000) libm.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6 (0x00007f5ba10f6000) libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007f5ba0edf000) libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007f5ba0b40000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f5ba093c000) libresolv.so.2 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libresolv.so.2 (0x00007f5ba0725000) libz.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libz.so.1 (0x00007f5ba0509000) libbz2.so.1.0 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libbz2.so.1.0 (0x00007f5ba02f9000) liblzma.so.5 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblzma.so.5 (0x00007f5ba00d3000) liblz4.so.1 => /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/liblz4.so.1 (0x00007f5b9fec1000) librt.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/librt.so.1 (0x00007f5b9fcb9000) libuuid.so.1 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libuuid.so.1 (0x00007f5b9fab2000) /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x000055b6671f1000) -- System Information: Debian Release: buster/sid APT prefers stable APT policy: (1990, 'stable'), (900, 'testing'), (500, 'unstable-debug'), (500, 'testing-debug'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'oldstable'), (101, 'experimental'), (1, 'experimental-debug') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Foreign Architectures: i386 Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=fr_FR.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=C (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) Versions of packages aptitude depends on: ii aptitude-common 0.8.7-1 ii libapt-pkg5.0 1.4.7 ii libboost-filesystem1.62.0 1.62.0+dfsg-4 ii libboost-iostreams1.62.0 1.62.0+dfsg-4 ii libboost-system1.62.0 1.62.0+dfsg-4 ii libc6 2.24-11+deb9u1 ii libcwidget3v5 0.5.17-6 ii libgcc1 1:7.1.0-10 ii libncursesw5 6.0+20161126-1 ii libsigc++-2.0-0v5 2.10.0-1 ii libsqlite3-0 3.19.3-3 ii libstdc++6 7.1.0-10 ii libtinfo5 6.0+20161126-1 ii libxapian30 1.4.4-2 Versions of packages aptitude recommends: ii libparse-debianchangelog-perl 1.2.0-12 ii sensible-utils 0.0.9 Versions of packages aptitude suggests: ii apt-xapian-index 0.49 pn aptitude-doc-en | aptitude-doc <none> ii debtags 2.1.2 ii tasksel 3.39 -- no debconf information