I get this error when I use apt-get upgrade & apt-get autoremove and on every apt-get [Something].. and when I try to install applications too:
Errors were encountered while processing:
man-db
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
No solution mentioned in the answers worked for me and I tried a solution mentioned here on Ubuntu Forums, executing the command
sudo dpkg -i --force-all [deb file path]
and that worked.
Please read the comments below. This may be a dangerous command to run on your system and create an unrecoverable state. (the lines have been commented out to prevent copy-and-paste sysadmin'ing).
Simple and working i tried it !!
sudo -s
# cd /var/cache/debconf
# rm *.dat
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade
Enjoy ;)
You may also want to know that you can use dpkg --audit to see what the actual problem is.
If the output is something like:
The following packages are in a mess due to serious problems during installation.
They must be reinstalled for them (and any packages that depend on them)
to function properly:
gcdemu A GNOME panel applet to control CDEmu daemon
The following packages have been unpacked but not yet configured.
They must be configured using dpkg --configure or the configure
menu option in dselect for them to work:
cdemu-daemon CDEmu daemon
cdemu-client A simple command-line client to control CDEmu daemon
The following packages are only half configured, probably due to problems
configuring them the first time. The configuration should be retried using
dpkg --configure <package> or the configure menu option in dselect:
transmission-daemon lightweight BitTorrent client (daemon)
vhba-dkms VHBA virtual host bus adapter module
You could run the command: dpkg --configure <packagename>
dpkg --configure cdemu-daemon
In order to
Reconfigure an unpacked package.
If -a or --pending is given instead of package, all unpacked but unconfigured
packages are configured.
Furthermore you could use:
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get --reinstall install gcdemu
To fix the packages that are in a mess.
Examples from here: http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1502826.html
You have to run those commands with sudo preceding them so they can be executed with super user credentials Example:
sudo apt-get autoremove "NAME OF PACKAGE HERE"
community wiki answer - solved by OP
This problem was resolved by running the following terminal command:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh -a
If you have deleted /var/cache in a misguided attempt to clean up (like I did), this might fix the issue (it did for me):
sudo mkdir /var/cache/debconf
