determining which package is 'responsible' for forcing a downgrade ?

[Gustavo Niemeyer]

>     Name: MozillaThunderbird
>    Version: 1.99.1-44.1 at i586
>    Priority: 17
>    ...
>    Channels: Latest mozilla.org packages @ SuSE

This package isn't the same as...

>     Name: MozillaThunderbird
>    Version: 1.99.1-44.1 at i586
>    Priority: 5
>    ...
>    Channels: RPM System

...this one, even though they have the same version and name.

Smart is able to detect package uniqueness with a more insightful
way than just name/version.  If it was precisely the same package,
it'd be listed with a single entry, and Smart would say so with:

     Channels: RPM System; Latest mozilla.org packages @ SuSE

> % smart query --show-summary --show-channels 
> MozillaThunderbird-1.99.1-44.1 at i586
>  MozillaThunderbird-1.99.1-44.1 at i586 [suse-mozilla-latest] - The
> Stand-Alone Mozilla Mail Component
>  MozillaThunderbird-1.99.1-44.1 at i586 [myDB] - The Stand-Alone Mozilla
> Mail Component

Again, they're different packages. Look at this sample:

  % smart query python --show-channels
  (...)
  python_2.4.3-11ubuntu3 [deb-sys, edgy]

In this case I have *one* package in *two* channels. In your case
you have *two* packages in *two* channels, even though they use
the same name and version (which is a bad thing to be doing).

Something like this might also happen if for some reason the
metadata in these channels say different things about the same
package (which would of course mean a different package as far
as a dependency solver is concerned).

Try the following: run "smart query --show-all" in these packages,
put data for each package in a separate file, and run diff on them.
This way you can tell how they're differing.


> it's already, apparently, correctly installed,

It is, and it's not, since there are two of them.

>  http://software.opensuse.org/download/mozilla/openSUSE_10.2/i586/MozillaThunderbird-1.99.1-44.1.i586.rpm

It got the same package again.  The one from openSUSE 10.2.  After
doing what I suggested above, try disabling the 10.2 channel, and
running install again.

>  error: package MozillaThunderbird-1.99.1-44.1 is already installed

Yep.. bad things happen in these cases.

> >Also try to check how many packages you have with similar names
> >but different content.
> 
> i'm not sure what that means ...

What I explained above..

-- 
Gustavo Niemeyer
http://niemeyer.net