package man-db 2.5.7-2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[David Belser]

Binary package hint: man-db

This may not a bug. Though I found many user reported difficulties and some bugs with laptop hardware power management, I decided to try some of the solutions to fix this. Using some ubuntu wiki power management and hibernation notes for Ubuntu 10.04 as a guide, I used synaptic to install laptop-mode-tools which removed the default installation of pm-utils-powersave-policy.

Synaptic installation of the hibernate package failed with this message:

"To be able to suspend the system, uswsusp needs a swap partition or file to write a system snapshot to. No such space seems to be available for this.
You should create a swap partition or file, preferably twice the size of the system's physical RAM.
Then, run 'dpkg-reconfigure uswsusp' or edit the configuration file manually."

While this was displayed, gparted examination of the single hard drive showed the existing swap 3.2GB partition /dev/sda7 was not actively being used. Additionally, the swap partition was not twice the 3GB size of physical RAM, as instructed in the error message. Gparted successfully resized it to 6GB and activated it.

Again following error instructions above, a root terminal was opened to begin dpkg-reconfigure uswsusp. This began the sequence of option dialogs for configuration information entries.

One of the first dpkg-reconfigure uswsusp dialog screens displays one long empty text field for a device to be specified. Unless the exact designation for an alternative device is entered, the dialog suggests that this field should remain blank to permit a default process of discovery. The dialog was not clear what designation format was required. So, it remained blank.

dpkg-reconfigure uswsusp completed execution reports to terminal show the default discovery method failed to choose device /dev/sda7 correctly over another designated by a cryptic UUID. Only after seeing the final error, are acceptable formats enumerated in the terminal reports. The string /dev/sda7 should and would have been entered as the device designation in this dialog, if this was more clearly stated. I wondered if that UUID was the encryptfs mount?.

During another early dpkg-reconfigure uswsusp configuration dialog, the choice must be made between a detailed text report or a progress bar, with a dependency on the yet-to-be-installed splashy package. The progress bar would be selected after installation of the splashy package. Leaving dpkg-reconfigure uswsusp to running with unconfigured dialogs, synaptic fails to install splashy.

After the first synaptic splashy failure, synaptic is closed, the dpkg-reconfigure uswsusp dialog choice changes to the detailed text report, and all additional dialogs get correct input. Execution completes reporting the failure mentioned earlier.

The man-db bug report you see here immediately followed an unsuccessful attempt to report splashy. Failure of man-db to update, would seem to be the result of splashy installation failure.

I hope this information is helpful.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: man-db 2.5.7-2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-25.44-generic 2.6.32.21+drm33.7
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-25-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Oct 6 03:47:02 2010
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
SourcePackage: man-db
Title: package man-db 2.5.7-2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1