package exim4-daemon-heavy 4.69-5ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 3

[Edward R. Rubinsky]

Binary package hint: exim4

Tried to "apt-get install postfix" and received an error concerning exim4-daemon-heavy.
-- start of console output.
ed@Ubuntu1:/etc/apache2$ sudo apt-get install postfix
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  procmail postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin resolvconf postfix-cdb
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  exim4 exim4-base exim4-config exim4-daemon-heavy
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  postfix
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1219kB of archives.
After this operation, 856kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main postfix 2.5.5-1 [1219kB]
Fetched 1219kB in 1s (896kB/s)
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 146982 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing exim4 ...
dpkg: exim4-base: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you request:
 exim4-daemon-heavy depends on exim4-base (>= 4.69).
Removing exim4-base ...
 * Stopping MTA [ OK ]
Removing exim4-config ...
dpkg: exim4-daemon-heavy: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you request:
 bsd-mailx depends on exim4 | mail-transport-agent; however:
  Package exim4 is not installed.
  Package mail-transport-agent is not installed.
  Package exim4-daemon-heavy which provides mail-transport-agent is to be removed.
Removing exim4-daemon-heavy ...
 * Stopping MTA /sbin/start-stop-daemon: warning: failed to kill 5397: No such process
invoke-rc.d: initscript exim4, action "stop" failed.
dpkg: error processing exim4-daemon-heavy (--remove):
 subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 3
Processing triggers for doc-base ...
Processing 3 removed doc-base file(s)...
Registering documents with scrollkeeper...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 exim4-daemon-heavy
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
--- end of console output. ---

I then tried to fix the broken exim4 package using Synaptic package manager which resulted in the following error.

Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 146874 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing mailx ...
Removing bsd-mailx ...
Processing triggers for doc-base ...
Processing 1 removed doc-base file(s)...
Registering documents with scrollkeeper...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
(Reading database ... 146858 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing exim4-daemon-heavy ...
 * Stopping MTA
/sbin/start-stop-daemon: warning: failed to kill 5397: No such process
invoke-rc.d: initscript exim4, action "stop" failed.
dpkg: error processing exim4-daemon-heavy (--purge):
 subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 3
Errors were encountered while processing:
 exim4-daemon-heavy
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install. Trying to recover:

ProblemType: Package
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
ErrorMessage: subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 3
NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
Package: exim4-daemon-heavy 4.69-5ubuntu2
SourcePackage: exim4
Title: package exim4-daemon-heavy 4.69-5ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 3
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-17-generic i686

[Andres Rodriguez (andreserl)]

Thank you for reporting bugs and trying to make Ubuntu better

Unfortunately, Ubuntu 8.10 is no longer supported as it has reached its EOL (End of Life). For more information please refer to [1]. For this reason I'm closing this bug report.

[1]. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases