Bug#850460: nspr: FTBFS randomly (test "cvar" fails)

[Santiago Vila]

Package: src:nspr
Version: 2:4.12-6
Severity: important

Dear maintainer:

I tried to build this package in stretch with "dpkg-buildpackage -B"
but it failed:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[...]
 debian/rules build-arch
dh --sourcedirectory=nspr build-arch
dh: Compatibility levels before 9 are deprecated (level 7 in use)
   dh_testdir -a -O--sourcedirectory=nspr
   dh_update_autotools_config -a -O--sourcedirectory=nspr
   debian/rules override_dh_auto_configure
make[1]: Entering directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>'
sed 's, at DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH@/,x86_64-linux-gnu/,g;s, at MULTIARCH_WILDCARD@/,*/,g' debian/libnspr4-dev.install.in > debian/libnspr4-dev.install
sed 's, at DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH@/,x86_64-linux-gnu/,g;s, at MULTIARCH_WILDCARD@/,*/,g' debian/libnspr4.install.in > debian/libnspr4.install
sed 's, at DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH@/,x86_64-linux-gnu/,g;s, at MULTIARCH_WILDCARD@/,*/,g' debian/libnspr4-dev.links.in > debian/libnspr4-dev.links
sed 's, at DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH@/,x86_64-linux-gnu/,g;s, at MULTIARCH_WILDCARD@/,*/,g' debian/libnspr4.lintian-overrides.in > debian/libnspr4.lintian-overrides
for file in config.guess config.sub; do \
	sed -i '2!b;/^#/ i\exec "/usr/share/misc/'$file'" "$@"' nspr/build/autoconf/$file; \
done

[... snipped ...]

reinit			Passed
rwlocktest			Passed
sel_spd			Passed
selct_er			Passed
selct_nm			Passed
selct_to			Passed
selintr			Passed
sema			Passed
semaerr			Passed
semaping			Passed
sendzlf			Passed
server_test			Passed
servr_kk			Passed
servr_uk			Passed
servr_ku			Passed
servr_uu			Passed
short_thread			Passed
sigpipe			Passed
sockopt			Passed
sockping			Passed
sprintf			Passed
stack			Passed
stdio			Passed
str2addr			Passed
strod			Passed
switch			Passed
system			Passed
testbit			Passed
testfile			Passed
threads			Passed
timemac			Passed
timetest			Passed
tpd			Passed
udpsrv			Passed
version			Passed
writev			Passed
xnotify			Passed
zerolen			Passed
END			Fri Jan  6 02:25:14 UTC 2017
debian/rules:80: recipe for target 'override_dh_auto_test' failed
make[1]: *** [override_dh_auto_test] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory '/<<PKGBUILDDIR>>'
debian/rules:41: recipe for target 'build-arch' failed
make: *** [build-arch] Error 2
dpkg-buildpackage: error: debian/rules build-arch gave error exit status 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is just how the build ends, not necessarily the relevant part.

I've put several build logs here:

https://people.debian.org/~sanvila/build-logs/nspr/

If this is really a bug in one of the build-depends, please use reassign and affects,
so that this is still visible in the page for this package.

The bug should be reproducible with sbuild on a single CPU virtual machine,
provided you try enough times (as the failure happens randomly).

Thanks.