I've encountered the same behavior twice. First time was a total surprise and I had to 'apt install darktable', which fortunately worked.
Today, I noted that darktable would be removed with apt dist-upgradeRequested output follows:[charlie@dicke:~]$ sudo apt dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
apg blender-data bolt cracklib-runtime djvulibre-bin docbook-xml docbook-xsl expect fonts-liberation2 fwupd fwupd-amd64-signed geocode-glib-common
gimp-data gir1.2-evince-3.0 gir1.2-goocanvas-2.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-4.1 gir1.2-malcontent-0 gjs gkbd-capplet gnome-control-center-data
gnome-remote-desktop gnome-settings-daemon gnome-settings-daemon-common gnome-user-share gstreamer1.0-gtk3 gtk2-engines-pixbuf jq libann0
libapache2-mod-dnssd libavdevice59 libavfilter8 libavformat59 libbabl-0.1-0 libcapi20-3 libcbor0.8 libcdk5nc6 libcdt5 libcgraph6 libcolord-gtk4-1
libconfig-general-perl libconfig9 libcrack2 libdcmtk17 libembree3-3 libfilesys-df-perl libflashrom1 libflatpak0 libfreerdp-server2-2 libfreerdp2-2
libftdi1-2 libfwupd2 libgcab-1.0-0 libgdata-common libgdata22 libgee-0.8-2 libgegl-0.4-0 libgegl-common libgeoclue-2-0 libgeocode-glib-2-0
libges-1.0-0 libgimp2.0 libgjs0g libgnome-bg-4-2 libgnome-bluetooth-ui-3.0-13 libgnome-rr-4-2 libgnomekbd-common libgnomekbd8 libgoa-1.0-0b
libgoa-1.0-common libgoocanvas2-perl libgps30 libgraphics-tiff-perl libgsound0 libgtk3-imageview-perl libgtk3-simplelist-perl libgtop-2.0-11
libgtop2-common libgts-0.7-5 libgts-bin libgumbo1 libgupnp-av-1.0-3 libgupnp-dlna-2.0-4 libgvpr2 libgweather-4-0 libgweather-4-common libibus-1.0-5
libimage-png-libpng-perl libjavascriptcoregtk-4.0-18 libjavascriptcoregtk-4.1-0 libjaylink0 libjcat1 libjim0.81 libjq1 libkf5js5 libkf5jsapi5
liblab-gamut1 libllvm15:i386 liblocale-codes-perl liblog4cplus-2.0.5 libmalcontent-0-0 libmalcontent-ui-1-1 libmanette-0.2-0 libmapnik3.1
libmediaart-2.0-0 libmozjs-102-0 libmumps-5.5 libmutter-12-0 libmypaint-1.5-1 libmypaint-common libnma-gtk4-0 libnss-myhostname libnunit-cil-dev
libnunit-console-runner2.6.3-cil libnunit-mocks2.6.3-cil liboauth0 libokular5core10 libonig5 libopencolorio2.1 libopencv-photo406 libopencv-shape406
libopencv-stitching406 libopencv-viz406 libopenvdb10.0 libosdcpu3.5.0 libosdgpu3.5.0 libosmesa6 libosmgpsmap-1.0-1 libossp-uuid-perl libossp-uuid16
libostree-1-1 libpathplan4 libpdf-builder-perl libplacebo208 libpostproc56 libpugixml1v5 libpwquality-common libpwquality1 libpystring0 librest-1.0-0
librygel-core-2.8-0 librygel-db-2.8-0 librygel-renderer-2.8-0 librygel-server-2.8-0 libset-intspan-perl libsmbios-c2 libsnapd-glib-2-1 libspnav0
libspqr3 libswscale6 libtexluajit2 libtext-markdown-perl libtss2-tctildr0 libunistring2 libunistring2:i386 libvpx7:i386 libvtk9.1 libwinpr2-2
libwpe-1.0-1 libwpebackend-fdo-1.0-1 libxklavier16 libyaml-cpp0.8 linux-headers-6.4.0-2-common linux-kbuild-6.4.0-2 malcontent malcontent-gui
mutter-common mutter-common-bin pdf2djvu power-profiles-daemon python3-mlt python3-pywt realmd rygel sgml-data tcl-expect tecla tesseract-ocr
tesseract-ocr-eng tesseract-ocr-osd unpaper webp-pixbuf-loader xdg-dbus-proxy xsane-common yelp-xsl
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
blender darktable dvipng flowblade gimp gimp-ufraw gir1.2-webkit2-4.1 gmic gnome-control-center gnome-online-accounts gnome-sushi gnome-user-docs
gnumeric-doc gnuplot-x11 gphoto2 graphviz gscan2pdf gvfs-backends libc-devtools libgmic1 libgoa-backend-1.0-1 libgphoto2-dev libgvc6
libimage-sane-perl libopencv-videoio406 libopenimageio2.4 libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 libwine libyelp0 python3-opencv python3-pydot python3-pygraphviz
sane-utils viking wine64 xsane yelp
The following NEW packages will be installed:
gnuplot-qt
The following packages have been kept back:
libavif15:i386 libgd3 libgd3:i386
The following packages will be upgraded:
gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-4.1 libjavascriptcoregtk-4.1-0
2 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 37 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 8,609 kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,096 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] n
Abort.Apt cache policy:
[charlie@dicke:~]$ apt-cache policy
Package files:
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
release a=now
500 http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable/main amd64 Packages
release v=1.0,o=Google LLC,a=stable,n=stable,l=Google,c=main,b=amd64
origin dl.google.com
200 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/contrib i386 Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,n=trixie,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=i386
origin deb.debian.org
200 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/contrib amd64 Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,n=trixie,l=Debian,c=contrib,b=amd64
origin deb.debian.org
200 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/non-free i386 Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,n=trixie,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=i386
origin deb.debian.org
200 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/non-free amd64 Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,n=trixie,l=Debian,c=non-free,b=amd64
origin deb.debian.org
200 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/main i386 Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,n=trixie,l=Debian,c=main,b=i386
origin deb.debian.org
200 http://deb.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
release o=Debian,a=testing,n=trixie,l=Debian,c=main,b=amd64
origin deb.debian.org
Pinned packages:I have attached a file with the per-package policies for each package set to be removed.It is interesting that a lot more than darktable is slated to be removed this time.Thank you for revisiting this issue!
Charlie