package acpid 1.0.6-9ubuntu6 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[Colin Kelly]

Binary package hint: acpid

Ubuntu 9.10 64 bit
apt-get update failed to install package

ProblemType: Package
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Sep 15 15:34:56 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Package: acpid 1.0.6-9ubuntu6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-10.32-generic
SourcePackage: acpid
Title: package acpid 1.0.6-9ubuntu6 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-10-generic x86_64

[fejes (anthony-fejes)]

I confirm I'm seeing the same error on latest version of Karmic:

afejes@afejes01:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  initscripts upstart
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Setting up acpid (1.0.6-9ubuntu6) ...
 * Stopping Hardware abstraction layer hald [ OK ]
start: Job is already running: acpid
 * Starting Hardware abstraction layer hald invoke-rc.d: initscript hal, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing acpid (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 acpid
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
afejes@afejes01:~$

[fejes (anthony-fejes)]

further to this, using either of the following commands:

sudo /etc/init.d/hal stop
or
sudo service hal stop

give the following (identical) error, which I suspect is related:

 Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d, use the service(8)
utility, e.g. service hal STOP

 The script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an Upstart
job, but STOP is not supported for Upstart jobs.