The live installer has been working fine until approximately 3-4 days ago.

The installation of a custom Kali Linux live image fails during the base-installer / live-installer stage.
The live system squashfs mounts successfully (loop0, ~3.6GB) and its content is copied to /target, but the installer cannot execute critical binaries inside the chroot (dpkg-divert, dpkg-reconfigure, apt-get, apt-cdrom, debconf-set-selections, locale-gen), all failing with error code 127 ("No such file or directory"). /bin/dpkg is present in /target but companion tools are missing or non-executable.

failures in order

• dpkg-divert, dpkg-reconfigure — not found in chroot (live-installer.d/openssh-server, error 127)
• apt-cdrom, apt-get — not found in chroot (base-installer, error 127)
• debconf-set-selections, locale-gen — not found in chroot (error 127)
• apt-mirror-setup script arithmetic error (line 88, illegal number)
• tar unable to create hardlink across ./usr/lib/modules/ → ./boot/
• live-installer completes but leaves system unconfigured

Log entry below

Nov 13 12:20:34 kernel: [ 96.757586] squashfs: version 4.0 (2009/01/31) Phillip Lougher
Nov 13 12:20:34 kernel: [ 96.769498] loop: module loaded
Nov 13 12:20:34 kernel: [ 96.771957] loop0: detected capacity change from 0 to 7625320
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: chroot: can't execute 'dpkg-divert': No such file or directory
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: chroot: can't execute 'dpkg-divert': No such file or directory
Nov 13 12:25:08 /usr/lib/live-installer.d/openssh-server: warning: /target/etc/mtab won't be updated since it is a symlink
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: chroot: can't execute 'dpkg-reconfigure': No such file or directory
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: warning: /usr/lib/live-installer.d/openssh-server returned error code 127
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: apt-install or in-target is already running, so you cannot run either of
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: them again until the other instance finishes. You may be able to use
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: 'chroot /target ...' instead.
Nov 13 12:25:08 in-target: Unexpected error; command not executed: '/usr/lib/live/config/1090-ssl-cert'
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: warning: /usr/lib/live-installer.d/ssl-cert returned error code 1
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: apt-install or in-target is already running, so you cannot run either of
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: them again until the other instance finishes. You may be able to use
Nov 13 12:25:08 live-installer: 'chroot /target ...' instead.
Nov 13 12:25:08 in-target: Unexpected error; command not executed: 'sh -c apt-mark showhold | while read pkg; do apt-mark unhold $pkg; done'
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: warning: /usr/lib/live-installer.d/unhold returned error code 1
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: chroot: can't execute 'debconf-set-selections': No such file or directory
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: warning: /usr/lib/base-installer.d/20console-setup returned error code 127
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: chroot: can't execute 'apt-cdrom': No such file or directory
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: error: error while running apt-cdrom
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: chroot: can't execute 'apt-get': No such file or directory
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: warning: apt update failed: 127
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: apt-install or in-target is already running, so you cannot run either of
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: them again until the other instance finishes. You may be able to use
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: 'chroot /target ...' instead.
Nov 13 12:25:08 in-target: Unexpected error; command not executed: 'sh -c debconf-apt-progress --no-progress --logstderr -- apt-get -q -y --no-remove install locales'
Nov 13 12:25:08 localechooser: Adding locale 'en_GB.UTF-8'
Nov 13 12:25:08 localechooser: Generating added locales...
Nov 13 12:25:08 localechooser: chroot: can't execute '/usr/sbin/locale-gen': No such file or directory
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: warning: /usr/lib/post-base-installer.d/05localechooser returned error code 127
Nov 13 12:25:08 preseed: chroot: can't execute 'debconf-set-selections': No such file or directory
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: /usr/lib/post-base-installer.d/05preseed: return: line 88: Illegal number: apt-mirror-setup
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: warning: /usr/lib/post-base-installer.d/05preseed returned error code 2
Nov 13 12:25:08 base-installer: warning: /usr/lib/post-base-installer.d/05tzsetup returned error code 10
Nov 13 12:25:08 main-menu[2791]: (process:15587): tar: can't creas/7.2.15+kali-amd64/config' to './boot/config-7.2.15+kali-amd64'
Nov 13 12:25:08 main-menu[2791]: (process:15587): Warning: option --restore=file is unsafe without option -P (--physical) as it traverses symbolic links in pathnames
Nov 13 12:25:08 main-menu[2791]: INFO: Menu item 'live-installer' succeeded but requested to be left unconfigured.
Nov 13 12:25:08 main-menu[2791]: INFO: Falling back to the packagt