flashplugin-installer won't install / uninstall (Lucid)

[John Veith]

Ubuntu 10.04 LTS
john@john-desktop:~$ apt-cache policy flashplugin-installer
flashplugin-installer:
  Installed: 10.0.45.2ubuntu1
  Candidate: 10.0.45.2ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 10.0.45.2ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/multiverse Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ohn@john-desktop:~$ sudo aptitude install flashplugin-installer
[sudo] password for john:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Initializing package states... Done
Writing extended state information... Done
The following partially installed packages will be configured:
  flashplugin-installer
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information... Done
Setting up flashplugin-installer (10.0.45.2ubuntu1) ...
dpkg (subprocess): unable to execute installed post-installation script: Exec format error
dpkg: error processing flashplugin-installer (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
 flashplugin-installer
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install. Trying to recover:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done

[John Veith (jveith1)]

I have been trying to make the flash plugin work with Firefox. I have tried installing and uninstalling both the flashplugin-installer package, as well as the flashplugin-nonfree. Now, no matter what I try, I get the error noted here. Very frustrating. I believe the nonfree package is removed, but now I'm noticing this error is causing problems with installing other packages as well. Solutions?

[John Veith (jveith1)]

One more thing: I can't seem to completely remove the flashplugin-installer package. The dependencies list in the file browser with 0 bytes

[John Veith (jveith1)]

Was able to figure out that both the .prerm and .postrm scripts related to the flashplugin-installer package were corrupt. These files were located in directory /var/lib/dpkg/info/. I was able to remove the .postrm script with the following command in terminal. The same command (sudo rm) can be used to remove the file "flashplugin-installer.prerm as well.

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/info/flashplugin-installer.postrm

Once the corrupted scripts are removed, Synaptic can be used to remove the broken package. Now, I'm afraid to try installing the flash plugin again....

[Andrea Schiefer (djpurity)]

I can't get flash to work on ubuntu at all, and because of this, I don't even want it as an operating system.