package bsdmainutils 9.0.5ubuntu1 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2

[Jeff Lane ]

THis occurred in the middle of a Precise - Trusty upgrade.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: bsdmainutils 9.0.5ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-64.97-generic-pae 3.2.59
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-64-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.5
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Oct 8 13:40:11 2014
DuplicateSignature: package:bsdmainutils:9.0.5ubuntu1:subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-09-06 (762 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 12.04.1 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120817.3)
SourcePackage: bsdmainutils
Title: package bsdmainutils 9.0.5ubuntu1 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-10-08 (0 days ago)

[Jeff Lane  (bladernr)]

The upgrade has aborted. Your system could be in an unusable state. A
recovery will run now (dpkg --configure -a).

Setting up bsdmainutils (9.0.5ubuntu1) ...
update-alternatives: error: /var/lib/dpkg/alternatives/write corrupt: invalid status
dpkg: error processing package bsdmainutils (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of man-db:
 man-db depends on bsdmainutils; however:
  Package bsdmainutils is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package man-db (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of ubuntu-standard:
 ubuntu-standard depends on man-db; however:
  Package man-db is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package ubuntu-standard (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 bsdmainutils
 man-db
 ubuntu-standard

Upgrade complete

The upgrade has completed but there were errors during the upgrade
process.

To continue please press [ENTER]

This is lovely...

[Jeff Lane  (bladernr)]

turns out to actually be caused by a bip package that created /var/lib/dpkg/alternatives/write as basically a text file full of IRC log data.

renaming htat to write.bip allowed me to be able to apt-get -f install and fix everything (I hope, looks good for now).