Cannot use APT or Synaptics

[Hb_Kai]

I have a slight problem... :)

Whenever I try to use Synaptics or APT to download and install software or try to remove installed packages from my system, it kindly displays an error:

This is what I get from Synaptics:

E: dhcp-probe: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit st

and this is what I get from APT:

Errors were encountered while processing:

dhcp-probe

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1

This is also stopping me from updating properly.

However, if I was to run Aptitude either telling it which package to download and install or search through the repositories in Aptitude, it will work.

So obviously, I could leave it as it is and continue using Aptitude to manage my software but I would rather not as I use Synaptics usually and APT only sometimes and seeing as their broken, I would rather fix them than avoid them.

For those of you wondering, I'm on Ubuntu Karmic.

I don't know what the problem is but this also led to another problem being caused by my third-party software sources which I solved that problem but I don't know what to do with this one - I've looked through Google and found bug report pages on bugs.launchpad.com but they didn't have any solution to the problem either so I asked on LQ, got nothing from there and I don't get along with the people at the ubuntuforums.org, thanks fully to my impersonator, so I thought I'd try and see if anyone here knows about it?

[Alan2273]

Have you tried apt-get -f install to force an install of the files that do not get loaded because of the error.

If that does not work, this post might help.

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/41235

[Hb_Kai]

Forcing the packages won't work either.

This is a full quote of what's going on - in this example, I quickly tried removing the IDLE Python IDE package which is bugged itself anyway.

And thanks for that link but it looks like that guy is having a problem with his kernel or something and my problem is a little different.

@uBoris:~$ sudo apt-get -f remove idle
[sudo] password for : 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree	   
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  emerald-infinity-theme icon-aquadreams-theme metacity-showtime-theme
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED
  idle
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 61.4kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 262870 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing idle ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up dhcp-probe (1.3.0-2) ...
dpkg: error processing dhcp-probe (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 dhcp-probe
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[Hb_Kai]

Forgot to add. I also tried running ps -A to see if there was another Synaptics or something somewhere in the background and this is what I got:

http://pastebin.ca/1706204

[Alan2273]

Very strange as the dhcp-probe is for ethernet connection, and yet Aptitude works.

As I do not use Ubuntu, could this be a bug, have you tried filing a report.

[Hb_Kai]

Thanks for your advice so far Alan.

According to the Debian bugs archive, this is a reported bug and has already been fixed since October this year. But now, in Ubuntu, I've only found one bug report on the bugs.launchpad website but that did not have any feedback on whether it was a confirmed bug or anything.

[Boris]

@u[b]Boris[/b]:~$ sudo apt-get -f remove idle
 :0  :0  :0  

[Hb_Kai]

@u[b]Boris[/b]:~$ sudo apt-get -f remove idle
 :0  :0  :0  
:lol: Rather than giving my laptops and computers names like Hb_Kai-Computer, I give them real names like Boris, Henry and Dorace. :)
The "u" stands for Ubuntu.