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Can't use dpkg-reconfigure
I was going to update the system (apt-get update && apt-get upgrade) but it needed to reconfigure phpmyadmin (using dpkg-reconfigure) which I for some reason couldn't navigate. The normal keys for this are space for ticking a checkbox, arrows to move up and down, tab to move around the different fields and enter to ok/cancel/next. None of these works. I got past the phpmyadmin configuration somehow, don't really know why, but there are still three unconfigured packages and when running apt-get upgrade it invokes dpkg-reconfigure console-setup which I can't for my life seem to navigate.
When I press up, it just outputs ^[[A, down ^[[B etc. and the colors are all weird.
Tab just does what tab usually does (hops to the right) and enter seems to work in the sense that it exists the installation with error:
# apt-get upgrade Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 3 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Setting up console-setup (1.21ubuntu9) ... dpkg: error processing console-setup (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 10 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of kbd: kbd depends on console-setup | console-common; however: Package console-setup is not configured yet. Package console-common is not installed. dpkg: error processing kbd (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of inithooks: inithooks depends on kbd; however: Package kbd is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing inithooks (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured Errors were encountered while processing: console-setup kbd inithooks E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
What could be the cause of this? As for terminals I've tried Putty, Shellinabox, Gnome-terminal and Xterm so the problem is definitely serverside.
Replies (6)
I have had that same experience
Reply 1It happened to me when I made my own OVZ templates
Reply 2So to resolve it I hunted down the cause and removed it as a step in my OVZ template creation process. The problematic line was:
update-rc.d -f consolefont remove
When I left that as default (ie didn't include it) it worked ok, although I do vaguely recall still having some issues at times. I have now migrated most of my servers to TKL v11.x now though so I can't confirm that.
From memory any interactive console stuff within my OVZ appliances (prior to resolving the issue) resulted in this same behaviour (any of the screens that are normally blue background).
Perhaps try enabling 'consolefont':
update-rc.d -f consolefont defaults
Not sure if that will work for you or not...? Also your console output suggests that console-common isn't installed, perhaps try manually installing it and/or manually installing console-setup.
TKL Wordpress (seems to be
Reply 3TKL Wordpress (seems to be running 8.04) and yeah it's a VPS (OpenVZ). I've made a few minor tweaks here and there but nothing drastic. How did you get over the problem on 2009.x?
Hmm
Reply 4I don't know what I did but it worked. I messed around with debconf (trying to change frontend to readline and noninteractive) without much success, tried --force with dpkg-reconfigure but I just got a bunch of error messages whatever I did. So I rebooted the VPS, ran apt-get update && apt-get upgrade and everything behaved normally so I got everything configured! Computers can be weird sometimes. ;)
Thanks a bunch for the help in any case!
I'm not really clear what you mean by "this error"?
Reply 5Firstly, considering that this thread is discussing a few different issues (terminal encoding issues, dpkg failures, etc) it's not completely clear what you mean by "this issue".
Regardless, considering that this thread is 10 years old, even if on face value it appears to be a similar issue (back when I was a community volunteer! :), the the likelihood of the problem being related is approaching zero. So I suggest that you start a new thread and carefully describe the error that is occurring for you. Fell free to reference any parts of this thread that you feel are similar if you want, but TBH, I doubt it will add much value.
As a general rule when it comes to bug hunting and support, the more info you provide regarding what you are trying to do and the issues your hitting; the better. If you provide some info that's irrelevant I can skim over it. But if there is something important that you don't provide initially, then it will likely increase the time it takes me to understand the issue and help you diagnose it.
Also, the first post in a thread allows you to attach files, so you can add screenshots if you wish. If you do attach files, please explicitly let me know (and I'll edit your post so that they appear properly - the website has a bug so that they don't display).
I keep a fairly close eye on the forums. I aim to respond within one workday, but you should always get a response within a few days at the worst (often within a few hours or less even!).
Update
Reply 6Any ideas why we would be getting this error now on TKL 16.0?
But that was with a TKL 2009.x appliance running under OpenVZ (which doesn't have a 'proper' console). I have not had this issue with TKL v11.x (even under OVZ) so I'm not much immediate help to you.
What version are you using? What modifications have you made? Is it a VM or running on bare metal?