package fontconfig-config 2.8.0-3ubuntu9 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[Dark Dragon]

I tried to upgrade my Ubuntu Server 10.04 LTS to 12.04 LTS via "do-release-upgrade -d".

This fatal error occured and crashed my upgrade.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: fontconfig-config 2.8.0-3ubuntu9
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-41.88-generic-pae 2.6.32.59+drm33.24
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-41-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Apr 28 15:53:27 2012
ErrorMessage: ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Server 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100427)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: fontconfig
Title: package fontconfig-config 2.8.0-3ubuntu9 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-04-28 (0 days ago)

[Dark Dragon (darkdragon-001)]

I ran "apt-get dist-upgrade" manually after the crash.

It showed me the following error message:
"rmdir: failed to remove 'var/lib/defoma/fontconfig.d/': Directory not empty"

Afterwards all the other packages failed because of dependency problems.

So I removed the directory manually and ran the command again which seems to work fine until now.
So perhaps you should run "rm -R /var/lib/defoma/fontconfig.d/" instead of rmdir...

[Dark Dragon (darkdragon-001)]

Well my MySQL server upgrade and my GRUB2 upgrade also failed.

It would be nice if there would be some hints what to do when the do-upgrade-script command fails.
Perhaps it should be possible to rerun the script...

Perhaps there should be a separate check if GRUB is successfully installed/upgraded.
Even though apt-get dist-upgrade succeeded, GRUB2 was not properly installed.

It very hard to fix this with a live distro, mounting lvm volumes as well as a separate boot partition to fix grub.

But for the fontconfig, deleting the contents of the previously mentioned directory did the trick!

[kltm (ktlm)]

Perhaps this is related to #992534?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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