courier-base fails to install citing missing alternative files

[Kevin Burchett]

OS info:
NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="16.04.4 LTS (Xenial Xerus)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS"
VERSION_ID="16.04"
VERSION_CODENAME=xenial
UBUNTU_CODENAME=xenial

I just did a base install on Sunday where everything worked fine. I am using Ansible to ensure my installs are all identical. As of July 10, 2018, when I tried add courier-base to the base install it fails with the following error:

Setting up courier-base (0.68.2-1ubuntu7) ... update-alternatives: error: alternative path /usr/share/man/man5/maildir.courier.5.gz doesn't exist dpkg: error processing package courier-base (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2 Errors were encountered while processing: courier-base E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

By touching the following files, I get courier-base to install, but it seem hackish. I am assuming they were not added or were removed from the install package.

touch /usr/share/man/man5/maildir.courier.5.gz
touch /usr/share/man/man8/deliverquota.courier.8.gz
touch /usr/share/man/man1/maildirmake.courier.1.gz
touch /usr/share/man/man7/maildirquota.courier.7.gz
touch /usr/share/man/man1/makedat.courier.1.gz

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Stephan (world-wide)]

I confirm that this bug is still current on a clean Ubuntu 20.04 Focal installation. work-around makes the install no longer fail.