Bug 2487343 - post install warning when installing package: "description is missing needed field maintainer"
Summary: post install warning when installing package: "description is missing needed ...
Keywords:
Status: NEW
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: octave-symbolic
Version: 44
Hardware: Unspecified
OS: Linux
unspecified
low
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Colin Macdonald
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL: https://github.com/stevengj/nlopt/iss...
Whiteboard:
Depends On: 2499754
Blocks: 2499461
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2026-06-09 22:34 UTC by Colin Macdonald
Modified: 2026-07-13 18:54 UTC (History)
3 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed:
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Colin Macdonald 2026-06-09 22:34:17 UTC
In https://bodhi.fedoraproject.org/updates/FEDORA-2026-255cbf0056 it was noted that an error is shown:

```
>>> Running %postun scriptlet: octave-symbolic-0:3.2.2-2.fc44.noarch
>>> Non-critical error in %postun scriptlet: octave-symbolic-0:3.2.2-2.fc44.noarch
>>> Scriptlet output:
>>> error: description is missing needed field maintainer
>>> error: called from
>>>     get_description at line 81 column 7
>>>     rebuild at line 66 column 7
>>>     pkg at line 707 column 9
>>>
>>> [RPM] %postun(octave-symbolic-3.2.2-2.fc44.noarch) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
```

That "descriptiuon is missing needed " messages comes from Octave's `pkg` command, but I don't think it generated by the Symbolic package (which has a `Maintainer` tag in its DESCRIPTION file).  (I checked the source code of `pkg` and its case insensitive).

I don't know how to reproduce this so its hard for me to debug!



Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Colin Macdonald 2026-06-09 22:38:01 UTC
Maybe @orion recognizes this warning message?

Comment 2 Colin Macdonald 2026-07-13 18:47:34 UTC
Yeah, maybe the NLopt thing:

```
dnf install octave-NLopt
Updating and loading repositories:
Repositories loaded.
Package                         Arch     Version                          Repository            Size
Installing:
 octave-NLopt                   x86_64   0:2.10.0-9.fc44                  fedora           107.9 KiB

Transaction Summary:
 Installing:         1 package

Total size of inbound packages is 60 KiB. Need to download 0 B.
After this operation, 108 KiB extra will be used (install 108 KiB, remove 0 B).
Is this ok [y/N]: y
[1/1] octave-NLopt-0:2.10.0-9.fc44.x86_64                   100% |   0.0   B/s |   0.0   B |  00m00s
>>> Already downloaded
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1/1] Total                                                 100% |   0.0   B/s |   0.0   B |  00m00s
Running transaction
[1/3] Verify package files                                  100% |  66.0   B/s |   1.0   B |  00m00s
[2/3] Prepare transaction                                   100% |   1.0   B/s |   1.0   B |  00m01s
[3/3] Installing octave-NLopt-0:2.10.0-9.fc44.x86_64        100% | 171.1 KiB/s | 117.2 KiB |  00m01s
>>> Running %post scriptlet: octave-NLopt-0:2.10.0-9.fc44.x86_64
>>> Non-critical error in %post scriptlet: octave-NLopt-0:2.10.0-9.fc44.x86_64
>>> Scriptlet output:
>>> error: description is missing needed field maintainer
>>> error: called from
>>>     get_description at line 81 column 7
>>>     rebuild at line 66 column 7
>>>     pkg at line 707 column 9
>>> 
>>> [RPM] %post(octave-NLopt-2.10.0-9.fc44.x86_64) scriptlet failed, exit status 1
Transaction failed: Rpm transaction failed.
```

And then after I have that installed, `dnf install octave-symbolic` also fails.

So I think this is something to fix in `octave-NLopt`...


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