vdradmin-am preconfigured not to (auto)start in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

[TEN]

Only the most experienced VDR users can be expected to figure out (let alone know) that vdradmin-am will not work because it needs to have its configuration changed to ENABLED="1" e.g. by:
Ctrl-Alt-T
sudo nano -w /etc/default/vdradmin-am

Its weak default password on port 8001 is no reason to keep it this way, but rather to ask for a stronger one during installation.

[TEN (launchpad-20-ten)]

In Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, a barely noticeable line in apt-get's output hints at this
 * VDRAdmin-AM disabled - enable in /etc/default/vdradmin-am
but user still has to find and change PASSWORD = ToSomethingMoreSecure from linvdr
via sudo nano -w /var/lib/vdradmin-am/vdradmind.conf
and ENABLED="1" (from 0) in sudo nano -w /etc/default/vdradmin-am,
then sudo service vdradmin-am start (an unexplained sequence inextricably complicated for most in 2014).

Not sure how to report this as also affecting Trusty, please complete/elaborate.

[TEN (launchpad-20-ten)]

Still the same old (and now new) bugs in Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS,
not logging or returning any reason why "sudo service vdradmin-am start had" no effect either.

For a web interface, there really shouldn't be a weak, plaintext default PASSWORD = linvdr in /var/lib/vdradmin-am/vdradmind.conf in 2017 (or ever have been).

After logging in, one is greeted with just this:
Not a SCALAR reference at /usr/share/perl/5.22/Compress/Zlib.pm line 482.

Users are also likely to be misled by (what is only due to their respective rights):

$ vdradmind
ERROR: directory '/var/lib/vdradmin-am' is NOT writable!
ERROR: directory '/var/cache/vdradmin-am' is NOT writable!
ERROR: directory '/var/log/vdradmin-am' is NOT writable!
ERROR: directory '/var/run/vdradmin-am' is NOT writable!
ERROR: file '/var/lib/vdradmin-am/vdradmind.conf' is NOT readable!
ERROR: file '/var/lib/vdradmin-am/vdradmind.at' is NOT writable!
ERROR: directory '/var/lib/vdradmin-am' is NOT writable!
ERROR: directory '/var/lib/vdradmin-am' is NOT writable!

[TEN (launchpad-20-ten)]

Since /var/cache/vdradmin-am/usr/ through /var/cache/vdradmin-am/usr/share/vdradmin-am/template belong to root:root rather than vdradmin-am:vdradmin-am (and look like they have wrongly been placed into a relative path),
the Perl Zlib issue can be fixed by sudo chown -R vdradmin-am:vdradmin-am /var/cache/vdradmin-am/usr && sudo service vdradmin-am restart
cf. http://www.vdr-portal.de/board60-linux/board14-betriebssystem/board68-debian-und-derivate/p1128803-vdr-auf-raspberry-mit-weezy/#post1128803 et seq.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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