Comments on: Package Installation error and solution

By: Alexander Papadopulos

Alexander Papadopulos — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 19:37:47 +0000

Why is the right solution, so hard to find!

Thank you for sharing this valuable information. Worked on Ubuntu 11.10 for my MFC-7360n.

By: Connor Moroney

Connor Moroney — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:53:24 +0000

You are a life saver

By: Raul

Raul — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:59:41 +0000

Thanks a lot!!!
It works for me.

By: Neil McLeish

Neil McLeish — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:11:11 +0000

Hi Tim.

Thanks for the thorough information. Much appreciated.

In the end, I ended up doing a fresh OS install. I was not too bothered about that as I had only just done it and wasn’t going to lose much time.

I will keep this bookmarked, in case I need to call upon it again. I am just perplexed as to why the printer worked fine in 10.04 but not 10.10 or later.

Here’s hoping they sort it soon.

Many thanks again and best regards,

Neil.

By: Tim McDaniel

Tim McDaniel — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 01:25:32 +0000

In my case it was blindly following Brother’s Web page instructions for an MFC-7460DN. I believe that Ubuntu’s System - Administration - Printing is all I needed to do.

Anyway, in re Neil: mine was

# dpkg --remove --force-all mfc7460dnlpr
dpkg: warning: overriding problem because --force enabled:
Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
reinstall it before attempting a removal.
(Reading database … 180087 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing mfc7460dnlpr …
start: Unknown job: lpd
dpkg: error processing mfc7460dnlpr (--remove):
subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
mfc7460dnlpr

Worse, the Synaptic package manager threw an error on startup and aborted!

What I did was

locate postrm

which pointed to, inter alia, a lot of files named /var/lib/dpkg/info/[PACKAGE].postrm
I cd’ed there and found /var/lib/dpkg/info/mfc7460dnlpr.postrm.

#!/bin/sh
if [ -e /etc/init.d/lprng ]; then
/etc/init.d/lprng restart
elif [ -e /etc/init.d/lpd ]; then
/etc/init.d/lpd restart
fi

I appended ” || true” to make it ignore command exit statuses:

#!/bin/sh
if [ -e /etc/init.d/lprng ]; then
/etc/init.d/lprng restart || true
elif [ -e /etc/init.d/lpd ]; then
/etc/init.d/lpd restart || true
fi

Then I got

which removed the package. I ran

# dpkg --purge --force-all mfc7460dnlpr

to get rid of everything.

--
Tim McDaniel, tmcd@panix.com

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:06:01 +0000

Hi.
I know this is an old post, but I hope someone sees it.
Unfortunately, this did not work for me.
I get the following message:
$ sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq mfc5490cnlpr
dpkg: dependency problems prevent removal of mfc5490cnlpr:
mfc5490cncupswrapper depends on mfc5490cnlpr.
dpkg: error processing mfc5490cnlpr (--remove):
dependency problems - not removing
Errors were encountered while processing:
mfc5490cnlpr

I then removed mfcncupswrapper and tried again.
The result was:
$ sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq mfc5490cncupswrapper
(Reading database …
dpkg: warning: files list file for package `mfc5490cncupswrapper’ missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
(Reading database … 221988 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing mfc5490cncupswrapper …
njm@WOLF359:~$ sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq mfc5490cnlpr
dpkg: warning: overriding problem because --force enabled:
Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
reinstall it before attempting a removal.
(Reading database … 221988 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing mfc5490cnlpr …
start: Unknown job: lprng
dpkg: error processing mfc5490cnlpr (--remove):
subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
mfc5490cnlpr

If anyone out there has any ideas about how to solve this, without a full reinstall of my system, it would be appreciated.

Best regards,

Neil.

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 22:54:31 +0000

Thanks heaps man was having trouble with skype.

^ dude above just put “sudo ” infront worked for me

By: not-so-super-user

not-so-super-user — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:37:43 +0000

I get the following error:

dpkg: error: requested operation requires superuser privilege

superuser???

Thanks

By: lnxjenn

lnxjenn — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 05:47:52 +0000

I am getting this error but trying to remove the package I get

dpkg: error processing icaclient (--remove):
Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
reinstall it before attempting a removal.
Errors were encountered while processing:
icaclient

But I can’t reinstall either. I am getting this on several package I’m trying to reinstall or configure and cannot even locate on my Linux machine. Any ideas??

By: Josh

Josh — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:07:45 +0000

You are the man!!! Thanks so much for this! I could hug you!!

By: Bouke

Bouke — Sun, 21 Nov 2010 11:54:49 +0000

Hey thanks!
I had this problem with package skype just yet, and your solution still works on Kubuntu maverick!

By: Felipe Fernández

Felipe Fernández — Thu, 27 May 2010 18:01:47 +0000

Hi guys, I’m in linux Lucid Lynx and i was trying to install java jre 6 in the synaptic center, but my laptop ran out of battery and I get the problem that you have mentioned up there, but when I’m trying to remove by ‘sudo dpgk --force-remove-reinsreq ‘ I get this

dpkg: error processing openjdk-6-jre (--remove): subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 2

So, i’m unavailable to do what you have already said… Do you have any ideas? I’m not that expert to go and erase the files directly from de / directory

Regards,

Felipe.

By: Pedro

Pedro — Tue, 11 May 2010 16:22:05 +0000

thank you Brian Burch.

By: Brandon

Brandon — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 18:30:59 +0000

Saved me too. Used the method in Finally’s post. Thanks!

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:31:44 +0000

Thanks a lot for this post! Saved me a headache!

By: David Raleigh Arnold

David Raleigh Arnold — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:17:11 +0000

Almost forgot
I’m going to try my luck with dpkg-dev and a
/usr/local/debian repository. Hopefully, that
will keep me out of trouble in the future.
(cross fingers). Regards, daveA

By: David Raleigh Arnold

David Raleigh Arnold — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:12:52 +0000

I had a circle of postrm script errors from
trying to remove the brother brhl2070n driver.
My mistake was installing it with dpkg when I
had removed cups and lprng and lpd previously
with apt.
The solution, after following the procedure
already prescribed, was to go to /etc/init.d/ and
remove lprng and lpd startup scripts. The error
was nothing more than a failure to restart
something that was not running and could not
be restarted. Just installed lprng with no
problem. I am using debian on an old BP6 system so I can’t afford a hog like CUPS.
Regards, and thanks, daveA

By: Rengifo Ortega

Rengifo Ortega — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:47:57 +0000

Thanks for you reply Peter… I guess i will have to do the same. Even when it sucks !

Best regards

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:36:56 +0000

Hi Renginfo Ortega,
Unfortunately I couldn’t find any working solutions for this problem. I had to reinstall the entire system. I read through several forums, including the Hungarian and English Ubuntu forums, but nowhere could I find a solution.
If you have a Brother printer, I recommend you to install it via System -> Administration -> Printer. After reinstalling Ubuntu I could install my Brother HL-1030 laser printer that way and it works fine.
Hope I could help.
Al the bests,
Peter

By: Rengifo Ortega

Rengifo Ortega — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:04:35 +0000

Hello Peter,
Did you find a solution to this issue.I have exactly the same problem…
cheers
Rengifo