snap install seemed to crash the machine, reboot now put package management in a bad state

[Doug Jacobs]

Related to bug #1886414

Ubuntu 20.04 LTE desktop VirtualBox VM

Tried installing chromium-browser.

Seemed to hang at "installing chromium snap".
Terminal and desktop were no longer responsive, so I had to reboot the VM, which apparently left the package manager in an inconsistent state.

doug@ubuntudesktop:~$ sudo apt remove chromium-browser
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  chromium-browser
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 65 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
dpkg: error processing package chromium-browser (--remove):
 package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should
 reinstall it before attempting a removal
dpkg: too many errors, stopping
Errors were encountered while processing:
 chromium-browser
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: chromium-browser 80.0.3987.163-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.8.0-43.49~20.04.1-generic 5.8.18
Uname: Linux 5.8.0-43-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.16
AptOrdering:
 chromium-browser:amd64: Remove
 NULL: ConfigurePending
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
Date: Thu Mar 18 12:02:11 2021
Dependencies:

DpkgTerminalLog:
 dpkg: error processing package chromium-browser (--remove):
  package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should
  reinstall it before attempting a removal
ErrorMessage: package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should reinstall it before attempting a removal
InstallationDate: Installed on 2021-03-17 (1 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04.2.0 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20210209.1)
Python3Details: /usr/bin/python3.8, Python 3.8.5, python3-minimal, 3.8.2-0ubuntu2
PythonDetails: N/A
RelatedPackageVersions:
 dpkg 1.19.7ubuntu3
 apt 2.0.4
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
Title: package chromium-browser 80.0.3987.163-0ubuntu1 failed to install/upgrade: package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should reinstall it before attempting a removal
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Thanks for the report Doug. If you still have that VM around, can you share the output of the following commands?

    snap list

    snap connections chromium

[Doug Jacobs (djacobs98)]

I rebooted my VM a few times, and was able to remove chromium from Snap. Not sure why it took more than one reboot but something eventually got unstuck.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Does installing chromium-browser again work now?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for chromium-browser (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]