How to Fix “subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 2″ Error

UPDATE: Thanks to Msz Junk for pointing out the typos in the file paths.

What I really should have done was to link to khattam’s article because he did a pretty good job of describing the solution to this error but for my own archives, here goes…. I upgraded my box to Karmic Koala this evening and for some reason, ubiquity-frontend-kde flipped and borked the package management system. When I tried to open Synaptic, I got this:

So I tried

sudo aptitude –configure -a

and

sudo apt-get install -f

and even tried messing with these:

/var/lib/dpkg/info/dbconfig-common.postinst

/var/lib/dpkg/info/dbconfig-common.postrm

but the system wouldn’t budge. Then I found khattam’s article and realized I was looking in the wrong files. To solve this error, close all package management software, and back up and edit the /var/lib/dpkg/status file with the following commands:

sudo cp /var/lib/dpkg/status /var/log/dpkg/status.old

gksudo gedit /var/lib/dpkg/status

Here comes the dicey part. Search for the package causing all this brouhaha and delete its entry. Please be very careful here and make sure you leave a blank line between the package entries below or above the deleted package entry. Here are screenshots of my file before and after selecting the appropriate package description entry.

If you did this right you should be able to open Synaptic and remove the offending package (if you don’t want it any more) or re-install it.I don’t understand why the developers couldn’t cook up a more graceful way for dpkg to show its displeasure.

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