In trying to figure out why I couldn't install nightly builds of Fennec / Mobile Firefox, I discovered an internal feature of the application manager, which can lead to the inability to install packages in certain circumstances. I only managed to find this information in an obscure Mozilla bug report that took a lot of digging to turn up. I figured I would write up the details to make it easier for other people to find. I'd like to put this somewhere on the Maemo wiki; suggestions welcome for a good location and a place to link it from.

The Hildon application manager has a concept of package "domains". If the application manager package knows about a package from a "more trusted" domain, then it prevents the user from easily installing the same package from a "less trusted" domain. I would guess that this feature exists primarily to prevent the user from accidentally overriding a system package with one from a repository like maemo-devel, such as by installing a program that pulls in a new library package.

Under most circumstances, this feature likely protects the user from sloppily packaged software. However, it can also break some normal use cases. For example, people who installed Fennec from the Ovi store can't easily install newer versions of Fennec from Mozilla's repositories. I've also seen some messages that suggest people have this problem with libsdl-mixer1.2, though that may represent the mechanism working as intended.

The application manager tracks information about domains in two places. The file /usr/share/hildon-application-manager/domains/variant-domains.xexp contains the list of domains the application manager knows about, including names, a numeric "trust level", and a list of repository keys. The files /var/lib/hildon-application-manager/domain.* contain the list of packages seen in different domains. I don't know precisely when the application manager updates this state information, though it likely happens either when updating the application catalogs or when installing a package from a trusted domain.

If you've encountered problems such as the inability to install a package, and the "Log" menu option in the application manager shows messages like "Ignoring version from wrong domain", then you may need to manually edit the application manager's domain state files. To make the application manager forget it has seen a package from a given domain, just remove the line for that package from the appropriate domain file in /var/lib/hildon-application-manager/domain.* .

For example, I couldn't install nightly builds of fennec from Mozilla's repository, and the application manager's log mentioned "Ignoring version from wrong domain" about the nightly versions of fennec. So, to make the application manager forget fennec as a package, I deleted the lines containing "fennec" from all the files under /var/lib/hildon-application-manager/domain.* . After doing so, fennec showed up in the application manager again, and I could install the nightly builds.

Hi Sir,
I am facing the same issue for the last couple of days and thanks to your wonderfull explanation, i understodd the issue in detail. However since I am new to N900 & Linux, I am not sure what to do? Can you please give a step by step instructions with full x terminal commands.
Thannks,
Rajesh

Fyi - my issue is shown in detail below. I am not able to install / update / remove these applicationbs for the last 1 week.

hildon-application-manager 2.2.71
connected to Idea Internet
apt-worker: Ignoring version from wrong domain: libsdl-mixer1.2 1:1.2.6-5+0m5+ogg+mp3
apt-worker: /var/lib/apt/lists/repository.maemo.org_extras_dists_fremantle-1.3_free_binary-armel_Packages
apt-worker: Ignoring version from wrong domain: libsndfile1 1.0.20-0maemo1+ogg
apt-worker: /var/lib/apt/lists/repository.maemo.org_extras-devel_dists_fremantle_free_binary-armel_Packages
connected to Idea Internet
-----
Upgrading datetoday-home-widget 0.1-7.4 to 0.1-7.5
apt-worker: free space (/) = 89219072
apt-worker: free space (/home/user/MyDocs/.apt-archive-cache/) = 27924627456
apt-worker: free space (/home/) = 1770627072
apt-worker: total space (/home/) = 2113748992
required disk space: 70994
result code = 0
apt-worker: free space (/) = 89219072
dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 579 package `mediaplayer-l10n-frfr':
`Conflicts' field, invalid package name `g>': character `>' not allowed (only letters, digits and characters `-+._')
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
apt-worker: Ignoring version from wrong domain: libsdl-mixer1.2 1:1.2.6-5+0m5+ogg+mp3
apt-worker: /var/lib/apt/lists/repository.maemo.org_extras_dists_fremantle-1.3_free_binary-armel_Packages
apt-worker: Ignoring version from wrong domain: libsndfile1 1.0.20-0maemo1+ogg
apt-worker: /var/lib/apt/lists/repository.maemo.org_extras-devel_dists_fremantle_free_binary-armel_Packages

cool
install filebox and leafpad, you can set the "default text editor" to leafpad (in filebox) and just navigate to that folder and highlight the domain file you want to view, go to edit. leafpad has a search.

But currently, I am not able to install any application because of this issue...

Hi rajeshviswa,

While you might have observed some transient version of the problem described in this thread, you actually have an entirely different problem that prevents you from installing/upgrading packages:

This error message indicates your actual problem: you have some corrupt data in one of the package manager's status files. I don't know what actually caused this corruption, but you can't easily fix it yourself. I'd suggest making a backup, then reflashing your device from your computer.

This does look like an instance of the problem described in this thread, but it probably won't cause you any problem installing or upgrading packages.

Since several weeks I was having the problem "Ignoring wrong version..." in almost all packages in nokia system and updates repositories. That caused that many packages were not considered as valid nor used by HAM. However, I deleted all the files named domain.* in /var/lib/hildon-application-manager/ and the problem has dissapeared!! Does any maemo expert have any warning about using this troubleshooting?