package virtualbox (not installed) failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[Peter Mellett]

Apport told me to report this... It happens after login through lightdm to any DE. Occurring after apt-get remove virtualbox.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.10
Package: virtualbox (not installed)
Uname: Linux 3.16.3-031603-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
ApportVersion: 2.14.7-0ubuntu8
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Oct 26 18:03:42 2014
DuplicateSignature: package:virtualbox:(not installed):subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-06-05 (142 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
SourcePackage: virtualbox
Title: package virtualbox (not installed) failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Gianfranco Costamagna (costamagnagianfranco)]

do you have any other virtualbox in your system? did you correctly clean them up?

[John Schroeder (jschroed)]

Do you have any other virtualbox in your system? Yes
Did you correctly clean them up? No

I had this issue happen by installing virtualbox-4.3_4.3.22-98236~Ubuntu~raring_amd64.deb using dpkg and then attempting to install the virtualbox package. However, even if I remove virtualbox-4.3 before installing virtualbox, the problem still occurs.

[Gianfranco Costamagna (costamagnagianfranco)]

this seems to be a problem of the official virtualbox, not the debian one, so I can't help :)

[John Schroeder (jschroed)]

> this seems to be a problem of the official virtualbox, not the debian one, so I can't help :)

Or some kind of conflict. It seems at least my problem was not doing a purge on the manually installed virtualbox-4.3 before installing virtualbox from Ubuntu. However, my error was different than what was initially reported!

Anyway, the fix for me was to do:
sudo apt-get purge virtualbox-4.3 && sudo apt-get install virtualbox

This is the error I get if I just do a remove (not a purge) on virtualbox-4.3:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
virtualbox is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
3 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Setting up virtualbox (4.3.18-dfsg-2ubuntu1) ...
insserv: script virtualbox: service vboxdrv already provided!
insserv: exiting now!
update-rc.d: error: insserv rejected the script header
dpkg: error processing package virtualbox (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of virtualbox-qt:
 virtualbox-qt depends on virtualbox (= 4.3.18-dfsg-2ubuntu1); however:
  Package virtualbox is not configured yet.
  Package virtualbox-4.3 which provides virtualbox is not installed.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package virtualbox - 4.3.26-dfsg-1

---------------
virtualbox (4.3.26-dfsg-1) experimental; urgency=medium

  * Imported upstream release.
   * Conflict with upstream proprietary packages 4.3 series.
     (LP: #1371287, LP: #1375018, LP: #1385931, LP: #1386328, LP: #1421926)

 -- Gianfranco Costamagna <email address hidden> Tue, 17 Mar 2015 08:36:06 +0100

[John Belton (jbelton1950)]

This happened to me trying to instal VirtualBox in Ubuntu 15.04 after upgrade. This may be a regression.

[Gianfranco Costamagna (costamagnagianfranco)]

do you have the official binary installed?