Getting rid of "The following packages will be DOWNGRADED"

I'll start by stating, I'm pretty sure this is a unique mess of my own design, but I hope someone encountered this and might be able to help. ### The Setup My laptop runs Pop!_OS 22.04 (Based on Ubuntu Jammy). I really like the **xscreensaver** packages, but the Debian/Ubuntu/Pop!_OS release repos contain an outdated version, and only sid (aka Unstable) contains the updated package[*](https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/faq.html#upgrade "I was mistaken, and was working upon old habits"). No fret, that's why pinning exists, and so this is how I have it setup: > /etc/apt/preferences.d/unstable-200 file: >

> Package: *
> Pin: release a=unstable
> Pin-Priority: 200
>

> /etc/apt/preferences.d/xscreensaver-2000 file: >

> Package: xscreensaver*
> Pin: release a=unstable
> Pin-Priority: 2000
>

> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sid.list file: >

> deb [arch=amd64] http://http.us.debian.org/debian  sid main contrib non-free
>

This actually works, at this point running sudo apt install xscreensaver installs the updated versions. However, there is a strange side-effect. ### The problem When I run sudo apt update followed by sudo apt upgrade, I get the following output:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  alsa-topology-conf appmenu-gtk-module-common aspell-en ca-certificates
  chrome-gnome-shell dictionaries-common dns-root-data emacsen-common folks-common
  fonts-arphic-ukai fonts-noto-cjk fonts-noto-cjk-extra fonts-noto-color-emoji
  fonts-urw-base35 friendly-recovery gir1.2-flatpak-1.0 gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0
  gir1.2-graphene-1.0 gir1.2-gtksource-4 gir1.2-polkit-1.0 gir1.2-secret-1
  gir1.2-soup-2.4 gsfonts gsfonts-x11 hunspell-ar hunspell-de-at-frami
  hunspell-de-ch-frami hunspell-de-de-frami hunspell-en-au hunspell-en-ca hunspell-en-gb
  hunspell-en-us hunspell-en-za hunspell-es hunspell-fr hunspell-fr-classical hunspell-it
  hunspell-pt-br hunspell-pt-pt hunspell-ru hyphen-de hyphen-en-gb hyphen-es hyphen-fr
  hyphen-it hyphen-pt-br hyphen-pt-pt ieee-data javascript-common klibc-utils
  laptop-detect liba52-0.7.4 libappmenu-gtk2-parser0 libbytesize-common libffi8
  libflatpak-dev libgl1 libgles2 libgutenprint-common libgweather-4-0 libio-stringy-perl
  libjs-jquery libldacbt-abr2 libmpcdec6 libmysofa1 libopengl0 libpolkit-gobject-1-0
  libsndio7.0 libsoup-gnome2.4-1 libtermkey1 libvterm0 libwacom-common libxkbcommon0
  mythes-ar mythes-de mythes-de-ch mythes-en-au mythes-en-us mythes-es mythes-fr
  mythes-it mythes-pt-pt mythes-ru neovim-runtime netbase pass policykit-1 poppler-data
  powermgmt-base printer-driver-all python3-certifi python3-fido2 python3-jinja2
  python3-launchpadlib python3-lazr.uri python3-macaroonbakery python3-more-itertools
  python3-pkg-resources python3-pyatspi python3-rfc3339 python3-setuptools python3-tz
  python3-wheel python3-ykman sensible-utils sgml-base sgml-data sound-icons ssl-cert
  tpm-udev ucf update-inetd va-driver-all wamerican wbrazilian wbritish wfrench witalian
  wngerman wogerman wspanish wswiss xfonts-base xml-core yubikey-manager
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 125 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 257 MB/283 MB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]

This also throws off Pop!_OS Shop's update count, with these packages showing as pending Operating System Updates. ## Troubleshooting Some data I collected while attempting to troubleshoot this. Removing /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sid.list and running sudo apt update resolves the issue, so I know it's just a miscalculation/flawed logic somewhere. #### Focusing on the the first package in the list alsa-topology-conf: Although I know the error is completely superficial, at first I thought apt somehow tracks where (which repo) the package came from, so I removed, cleaned-up, then reinstalled the package. Didn't make a difference.

sudo apt remove alsa-topology-conf
sudo apt clean
sudo apt update
sudo apt install alsa-topology-conf

Running apt policy alsa-topology-conf, the results are: >

> alsa-topology-conf:
>   Installed: 1.2.5.1-2
>   Candidate: 1.2.5.1-2
>   Version table:
>  *** 1.2.5.1-2 200
>         200 http://http.us.debian.org/debian  sid/main amd64 Packages
>         100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
>      1.2.5.1-2 501
>         501 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu  jammy/main amd64 Packages
>         501 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu  jammy/main i386 Packages
>

It seems that both sid and jammy have the exact same version, and for some reason, apt matches the package to the 200 priority, instead of the 501 priority entry. With /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sid.list removed, the output looks like this: >

> alsa-topology-conf:
>   Installed: 1.2.5.1-2
>   Candidate: 1.2.5.1-2
>   Version table:
>  *** 1.2.5.1-2 501
>         501 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu  jammy/main amd64 Packages
>         501 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu  jammy/main i386 Packages
>         100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
>

### Related questions The following are related questions with similar situations but none of the answers there helped me understand or resolve this. * https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/270755/apt-pinning-priority-restricted * https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/639180/debian-10-why-some-ssl-packages-will-be-downgraded * https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/642951/how-to-get-rid-of-packages-were-downgraded-and-y-was-used-without-allow-down I've tried all of the answers in the above questions, but none seems to either be relevant or work out. # My question Does anyone have any suggestion on how to reconcile this so that the system will not constantly think that these packages need to be DOWNGRADED ?