package man-db 2.5.7-4 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[Laurent Schwarzenberger]

Binary package hint: man-db

I'm not sure what happened here. I did an upgrade and something in samba errored. The terminal froze and I restarted it. I was then told that I couldn't get a lock on apt/dpkg.

I ran these:
sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get install -f

It allowed some of the updates to finish, but not all. Samba, winbind and this are all having problems and created apport crashes. There were also various messages about dependencies being 1 ubuntu version behind what was required, the debian versions were the same (eg. packagex.x.x-xubuntu1 and packagex.x.xubuntu2)

My dpkg is currently broken and I don't know why. I can not run dpkg at all now. I get this message.

dpkg: parse error, in file '/var/lib/dpkg/updates/0018' near line 0:
 newline in field name `#padding'

Running that in google gives me error reports from debian mailing lists regarding bugs involving a lack of freespace. My system has 4.8GB free and the bug concerned was fixed 2 years ago.

I am running a system from upgraded lucid, not a fresh install.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: man-db 2.5.7-4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-20.29-generic 2.6.35.4
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-20-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Sep 17 02:46:17 2010
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100224.1)
SourcePackage: man-db
Title: package man-db 2.5.7-4 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 639768, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Please continue to report any other bugs you may find.