Can't install emacs-nox, config failed

[Joe Wood]

lsb_release:
Description: Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS
Release: 16root@vb1:~# apt-cache policy emacs-nox
emacs-nox:
  Installed: 46.1
  Candidate: 46.1
  Version table:
 *** 46.1 500
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
.04

My emacs installation got in a confused state, mixture of ubuntu packages and elpa packages. So

1/ apt remove --purge emacs* elpa-*

2/ Remove all traces of emacs and elpa packages, via find and rm as root

3/ Reinstall emacs-nox

   apt install emacs-nox

   dpkg report config error

4/ try again, same error

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: emacs-nox 46.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-34.53-generic 4.4.15
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-34-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Aug 27 20:31:39 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-04-21 (859 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140416.2)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: emacs-defaults
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to xenial on 2016-04-30 (118 days ago)

[Joe Wood (joew60)]

After some digging, I narrowed down the problem to install gnats-user for emacs24. Why its creating a gnats user I really don't know.

run the command, as root
# dpkg --configure -a -D221 &> Dpkg-error-log

NB. Initially it tried to create a gnats directory in , which I did on its behalf hoping this would solve the problem, but no joy. This is the second run