Comment 2 for bug 1421101

In my particular case, this error appeared to be related to permissions in the /var/run/postgresql directory. Postgres could not start because it could not modify files in that directory.

I have not been watching the Postgres installations carefully enough in the past. I now have both a postgres user and a postgres-xc user; I am not sure when I picked up each. After this upgrade the directory /var/run/postgresql and its contents were owned by postgres-xc but the Postgres server was running under the postgres user. I do not know what the status was before the upgrade.

I ran this command:

  chown -R postgres:postgres /var/run/postgresql

PostgreSQL starts and apt is content that the installation is complete.

The bug itself is a pretty generic "failed to install package." It is quite possible the problem I encountered is completely different from the problems others have.