Comment 2 for bug 320222

I can't confirm that since instead I had to talk her through running terminal, sudo and the dpkg command over the phone which did fix it.

In any event bug #323894 is all about "dpkg --configure -a" not working. It did work just fine.

My complaint is about the message appearing in the first place and why the whole package/update system doesn't just self heal instead of spitting out a message that only the geekiest can understand. Also note that it is a security issue. The user's system was set to automatically update. She just ran the update manager out of curiosity to discover that she was over a hundred updates behind and the obscure message with the request to report it.