Ttgjyuk

I used sudo aptitude update and sudo aptitude upgrade to update the packages, and encountered an error when processing the package man-db (with --configure). A few days later, same error occured with libc6:i386. Since there're many packages depends on these two partially installed ones, more and more errors are generated every day.

I tried all methods I can find on the internet, including sudo apt-get -f install and sudo rm /var/cache/debconf/* ; sudo apt-get update , none of them works. I'm not familiar with the Ubuntu system, so I don't know where to find more detailed error message telling what happens.

The system information is

$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 3.13.0-36-generic (buildd@toyol) (gcc version 4.8.2 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1) ) #63-Ubuntu SMP
$ uname -p -i -r
3.13.0-36-generic x86_64 x86_64
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty

These're the error messages

$ sudo dpkg --configure -a [99/1979]
Setting up man-db (2.6.7.1-1) ...
dpkg: error processing package man-db (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up libvirtodbc0 (6.1.6+repack-0ubuntu3) ...
dpkg: error processing package libvirtodbc0 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up cups-bsd (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.2) ...
dpkg: error processing package cups-bsd (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up phonon:amd64 (4:4.7.80-0ubuntu1~ubuntu14.04) ...
dpkg: error processing package phonon:amd64 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up libc6:i386 (2.19-0ubuntu6.3) ...
dpkg: error processing package libc6:i386 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up cups (1.7.2-0ubuntu1.2) ...
dpkg: error processing package cups (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of kde-runtime:
 kde-runtime depends on phonon; however:
 Package phonon:amd64 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package kde-runtime (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libdbus-1-3:i386:
 libdbus-1-3:i386 depends on libc6 (>= 2.10); however:
 Package libc6:i386 is not configured yet.

...

If someone could just give advice on finding more detailed error report, that will help. Thx.

Updated(2014.9.18 19:39)
Thanks for @Jan 's answer and I got this plenty of new messages:

$ sudo dpkg --configure -D 73777 man-db

D000001: ensure_diversions: new, (re)loading
D000040: checking dependencies of man-db:amd64 (- <none>)
D000400: checking group ...
D000400: checking possibility -> groff-base
D000400: is installed, ok and found
D000400: found 3
D000400: found 3 matched 0 possfixbytrig -
...
D000400: checking group ...
D000400: checking possibility -> dpkg
D000400: is installed, ok and found
D000400: found 3
D000400: found 3 matched 0 possfixbytrig -
D000040: ok 2 msgs >><<
D000040: checking Breaks
D000400: checking virtbroken man
D000400: checking virtbroken man-browser
Setting up man-db (2.6.7.1-1) ...
D020000: trigproc_activate_packageprocessing pkg=man-db:amd64
D000002: fork/exec /var/lib/dpkg/info/man-db.postinst ( configure 2.6.7.1-1 )
dpkg: error processing package man-db (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
D020000: post_script_tasks - ensure_diversions
D000001: ensure_diversions: same, skipping
D020000: post_script_tasks - trig_incorporate
D010000: trigproc_run_deferred
Errors were encountered while processing:
 man-db

and I tried to execute the man-db.postinst script manually, which results in this:

$ sudo sh -x /var/lib/dpkg/info/man-db.postinst configure 2.6.7.1-1
+ set -e
+ . /usr/share/debconf/confmodule
+ [ ! '' ']'
+ PERL_DL_NONLAZY=1 
+ export PERL_DL_NONLAZY
+ [ '' ']'
+ /usr/share/debconf/frontend /var/lib/dpkg/info/man-db.postinst configure 2.6.7.1-1

It seems that the error is due to the /usr/share/debconf/frontend script. But I can't trace more deeply and still don't know what's wrong.

Setting up man-db (2.6.7.1-1) ...
dpkg: error processing package man-db (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

This means that the postinst script for the man-db package failed. You can check why using:

dkpg --configure -D 777 man-db

Get help on using -D with dpkg -Dh.

You can also run the postinst script yourself:

sh -x /var/lib/dpkg/info/man-db.postinst configure 2.6.7.1-1

And figure out what's wrong.