This occurred for me on an older Spack clone, so I'm not sure whether or not it's been fixed already. But I noticed this odd behavior:
$ spack uninstall -y --dependents ncurses
==> Successfully uninstalled lua-luaposix@33.4.0%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /hcrkzdn
==> Successfully uninstalled cmake@3.7.2%gcc@6.2.1~doc+ncurses+openssl+ownlibs~qt arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /kbq74gf
==> Successfully uninstalled gettext@0.19.8.1%gcc@6.2.1+bzip2+curses+git~libunistring+libxml2+tar+xz arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /yiqj5x3
==> Successfully uninstalled xcb-proto@1.12%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /eqttirz
==> Successfully uninstalled boost@1.63.0%gcc@6.2.1+atomic+chrono+date_time~debug+filesystem~graph~icu+iostreams+locale+log+math~mpi+multithreaded+program_options+python+random+regex+serialization+shared+signals~singlethreaded+system~taggedlayout+test+thread+timer+wave arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /aywwnid
==> Successfully uninstalled py-setuptools@34.2.0%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /lbwg7gi
==> Successfully uninstalled lua@5.3.2%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /gf4j32n
==> Successfully uninstalled python@2.7.13%gcc@6.2.1~tk~ucs4 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /r7mn5ia
==> Successfully uninstalled py-packaging@16.8%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /jpjqk36
==> Successfully uninstalled py-appdirs@1.4.0%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /t5eps6o
==> Successfully uninstalled py-six@1.10.0%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /rxq43vd
==> Successfully uninstalled py-pyparsing@2.1.10%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /2v3z55j
==> Successfully uninstalled python@2.7.13%gcc@6.2.1~tk~ucs4 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /ldubumv
==> Error: Cannot uninstall readline@6.3%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 ^ncurses@6.0%gcc@6.2.1~symlinks arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64
$ spack uninstall -y --dependents ncurses
==> Successfully uninstalled lua@5.3.4%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /t2szkj7
==> Successfully uninstalled readline@6.3%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /vehx2ab
==> Error: Cannot uninstall ncurses@6.0%gcc@6.2.1~symlinks arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64
$ spack uninstall -y --dependents ncurses
==> Successfully uninstalled lmod@7.3%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /tfc5zbg
==> Successfully uninstalled lua-luaposix@33.4.0%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /ph5tf5y
==> Successfully uninstalled lua-luafilesystem@1_6_3%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /t6vt2td
==> Successfully uninstalled lua@5.3.4%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /jytyxod
==> Successfully uninstalled readline@7.0%gcc@6.2.1 arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /qgxtgq3
==> Successfully uninstalled ncurses@6.0%gcc@6.2.1~symlinks arch=linux-fedora25-x86_64 /ybsic3i
It seems like Spack isn't paying attention to the order of dependencies when it uninstalls something.
This occurred for me on an older Spack clone, so I'm not sure whether or not it's been fixed already. But I noticed this odd behavior:
It seems like Spack isn't paying attention to the order of dependencies when it uninstalls something.