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I went to install bsnes the other day and for whatever reason the installation failed. Now, I cannot update, install new packages, or do basically any apt-get commands as they all try to process this broken package and fail. Attempting to install a new package also just dooms it to the same fate. The error I get is:

Setting up google-chrome-stable (33.0.1750.152-1) ...

/var/lib/dpkg/info/google-chrome-stable.postinst: 124: /var/lib/dpkg/info/google-chrome-stable.postinst: update-alternatives: not found

dpkg: error processing google-chrome-stable (--configure):

 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127

Setting up bsnes (0.088-7) ...

/var/lib/dpkg/info/bsnes.postinst: 5: /var/lib/dpkg/info/bsnes.postinst: update-alternatives: not found

dpkg: error processing bsnes (--configure):

 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127

Errors were encountered while processing:

 google-chrome-stable

 bsnes

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

I have been searching on Google and here on Ask Ubuntu but have not found a working solution. The commonly suggested fix is to run the following:

sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get autoremove

sudo apt-get -f install

sudo dpkg --configure -a

This however does not work. The apt-get commands all fail with the same error as above and the dpkg command just doesn't help. The other thing they often suggest to purge it via Synaptic or the command line, which also fails.

Thanks for the help

For advanced users, use at your own risks.

According to the following error message :

subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 127

You may want to edit /var/lib/dpkg/info/[package_name].postinst and comment everything (or better yet, try to understand it and identify the issue), then try apt-get again.

Note that though in this particular question the message concerns "post-installation", it could have mentioned e.g. "pre-removal" or "post-removal" instead (in which cases the extension of the file to be edited would have been .prerm or .postrm).

Other than those which you have already posted, there are few other commands which can be helpful.

• 
  

  Autoclean clears out the local repository of retrieved package files.

  
  
  

  sudo apt-get autoclean
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  Force installation/removal of packages. ☠Use with caution

  
  
  

  sudo apt-get --force-yes install <pkgname>
  
  

  
  
  

  and

  
  
  

  sudo apt-get --force-yes remove <pkgname>
  
  

  
  

Also as always, you can use dpkg to install, remove and purge packages.

• 
  

  Install

  
  
  

  sudo dpkg -i <pkgname>
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  Remove

  
  
  

  sudo dpkg -r <pkgname>
  
  

  
  


• 
  

  Purge

  
  
  

  sudo dpkg -P <pkgname>
  
  

  
  

So, after more googling and really carefully reading through the error messages again it seems that dpkg needed to be reinstalled.

sudo apt-get install --reinstall dpkg

What tipped off that this was the problem (if anyone searches and sees this) is that update-alternatives: not found was in the error message. As soon as dpkg was reinstalled, the other packages proceeded to install normally automatically.

If all else fails. What I did was I first changed the directory to:

cd /var/lib/dpkg/info

then I removed everything with .postinst:

sudo rm *.postinst

then update repository

sudo apt-get update

then everything went back to normal when I did:

sudo apt-get --force-yes install openjdk-7-jre-headless

You can remove the package file in this /var/lib/dpkg/info/ path and update the source.

sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/info/[package_name].*

sudo dpkg --configure -a

sudo apt-get update

Then, reinstall your package sudo apt-get install [package_name]

Doc