Ubuntu
man-db package

package man-db 2.5.7-2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 255

Bug #637981 reported by John Squire on 2010-09-14

This bug report is a duplicate of: Bug #1372673: excessive debconf use when triggered. Edit Remove

This bug affects 2 people

Affects		Status	Importance	Assigned to	Milestone
	man-db (Ubuntu)	Confirmed	Undecided	Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: man-db

broken packages prevent updates loading (tz package )

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: man-db 2.5.7-2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-21.32-generic 2.6.32.11+drm33.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-21-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Sep 14 12:09:56 2010
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 255
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100427.1)
SourcePackage: man-db
Title: package man-db 2.5.7-2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 255

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Revision history for this message

John Squire (js003b7219) wrote on 2010-09-14:

Dependencies.txt Edit (799 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
Df.txt Edit (596 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
Dmesg.txt Edit (50.5 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
DpkgTerminalLog.txt Edit (3.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")

Revision history for this message

Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote on 2012-11-25:

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

Changed in man-db (Ubuntu):
status:	New → Confirmed

Revision history for this message

Colin Watson (cjwatson) wrote on 2014-09-23:

Thanks for your report. The basic problem here is that man-db's trigger uses debconf to decide whether to update the manual page database, but debconf is not always reliably usable in triggers. I finally figured out a simple way to avoid this problem, which I'm tracking as bug 1372673. If you are still affected by this locally (which I realise is unlikely in the case of some of the older bugs of this type), then running "sudo dpkg --configure -a && sudo apt-get -f install" in a terminal should normally be enough to get the package management system back to a sensible state.