package emacsen-common 2.0.7 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[Bill]

I got this meesage while upgrading from ubuntu 12.04 to 14.04:

Could not install 'emacsen-common'

The upgrade will continue but the 'emacsen-common' package may not be in a worki
ng state. Please consider submitting a bug report about it.

----------------------------------------------

I also got this message at about the same time, bu it may be a separate problem:

A problem occured during the clean-up. Please see the below message for more inf
ormation.

installArchives() failed

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: emacsen-common 2.0.7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-35.62-generic 3.13.11.6
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-35-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.3
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu Sep 11 08:16:50 2014
Dependencies:

DuplicateSignature: package:emacsen-common:2.0.7:subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-11-16 (663 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: emacsen-common
Title: package emacsen-common 2.0.7 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to trusty on 2014-09-11 (0 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Marine (willow94)]

Good morning,

Is there yet any procedure to follow to get round this bug? Would anyone happen to know where this issue is coming from?

Thanks, regards

[era (era)]

Marine Cannard it seems unlikely that your problem is related to this bug, unless you were specifically upgrading from Ubuntu 12 to Ubuntu 14. If I were you, I would submit a separate bug report so we get to examine your log files etc.

[era (era)]

Furthermore, this seems to have been caused by xemacs21 which I believe is no longer supported on Ubuntu.

Setting up emacsen-common (2.0.7) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/emacs/site-start.el ...
Install emacsen-common for xemacs21
emacsen-common: Handling install of emacsen flavor xemacs21

WARNING:
Couldn't find obvious defaults for:
data-directory
mule-lisp-directory
lisp-directory
Perhaps some directories don't exist, or the XEmacs executable,
/usr/bin/xemacs21
is in a strange place?Loading /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/debian-startup...
Loading 00debian...
Error while loading 00debian: Symbol's function definition is void: loop
Loading 00debian-vars...
Loading 50dictionaries-common...
Error while loading 50dictionaries-common: No /usr/local/ prefixed paths in load-path
Symbol's function definition is void: dolist
xemacs exiting
.
ERROR: install script from emacsen-common package failed
dpkg: error processing package emacsen-common (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

(Copy/paste from VarLogDistupgradeApttermlog.gz line 13445f.)

[era (era)]

See also https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xemacs21/+bug/789706 although I am hesitant to mark this as a duplicate.