Hopefully another data point: I accidentally started an install of the "ppm" package using "sudo apt-get install ppm" (I had the wrong package name), and it appeared to try to install kexec-tools. It hung during setup of kexec-tools (similar to http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1214718.html), so I interrupted the process. After this, I could not get pending set-up to finish because /var/cache/debconf/config.dat was locked, like so:
Hopefully another data point: I accidentally started an install of the "ppm" package using "sudo apt-get install ppm" (I had the wrong package name), and it appeared to try to install kexec-tools. It hung during setup of kexec-tools (similar to http:// ubuntuforums. org/archive/ index.php/ t-1214718. html), so I interrupted the process. After this, I could not get pending set-up to finish because /var/cache/ debconf/ config. dat was locked, like so:
~% pstree -alps 8300
└─frontend, 8300 -w /usr/share/ debconf/ frontend /var/lib/ dpkg/info/ kexec-tools. postinst configure 1:2.0.2-1ubuntu4
└─kexec- tools.pos, 8303 /var/lib/ dpkg/info/ kexec-tools. postinst configure 1:2.0.2-1ubuntu4
└─update- grub,8313 /usr/sbin/ update- grub
init,1
└─aptd,3060 /usr/sbin/aptd
└─dpkg,3098 --status-fd 14 --configure -a --force-confdef --force-confold
I was able to kill -kill 8313 (update-grub), then clean up as suggested in this bug.
~% lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Release: 12.04