Solved: Cannot reinstall or remove damaged software.

[assettt]

I was having issues with getting my brother printer to scan and decided to reinstall all the drivers. Somehow I ended up with the lpr driver getting seriously messed up and I've lost us of the printer. I have tried to remove purge the driver using konsole but it insists the driver is inconsistent and must first be reinstalled. Unfortunately I cannot reinstall the driver because Konsole errs with the following message "E: The package dcp540cnlpr:i386 needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it." I have tried to use synaptic but it opens with a very similar message "E: The package dcp540cnlpr:i386 needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it.
E: Internal error opening cache (1). Please report."
I have attempted dpkg --configure -a with recovery login but apparently I need to reinstall the lpr driver. So any ideas to resolve the issue short of reinstalling 11.10.

[OneLine]

Re: Cannot reinstall or remove damaged software.

Looking with the "ubuntu E: Internal error opening cache (1). Please report"

->

• http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1664969
• https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/11778
• http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/debian-26/e-internal-error-opening-cache-1-please-report-577973/
• ...

[assettt]

Re: Cannot reinstall or remove damaged software.

Tried all the solutions suggested from the links but still cannot solve the problem. Anybody with other ideas.

[OneLine]

Re: Cannot reinstall or remove damaged software.

E: The package dcp540cnlpr:i386...

What was the output of the command:

sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq dcp540cnlpr

man dpkg

NAME
    dpkg - package manager for Debian

SYNOPSIS
    dpkg [options] action

WARNING
    This manual is intended for users wishing to understand dpkg's command line options and package states
    in more detail than that provided by dpkg --help.

  PACKAGE FLAGS
    reinst-required
       A package marked reinst-required is broken and requires reinstallation. These packages cannot be
       removed, unless forced with option --force-remove-reinstreq.

    -r, --remove, -P, --purge package...|-a|--pending
       Remove an installed package. -r or --remove remove everything except conffiles.
...

    --force-things, --no-force-things, --refuse-things

       Force or refuse (no-force and refuse mean the same thing) to do some things. things is a
       comma separated list of things specified below. --force-help displays a message describ‐
       ing them...

       remove-reinstreq: Remove a package, even if it's broken and marked to require reinstalla‐
       tion. This may, for example, cause parts of the package to remain on the system, which
       will then be forgotten by dpkg.

[assettt]

Re: Cannot reinstall or remove damaged software.

sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq dcp540cnlpr
[sudo] password for tom:
dpkg: warning: there is no installed package that matches dcp540cnlpr

Then tried
tom@tom:~$ sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq dcp540cnlpr:i386
dpkg: warning: overriding problem because --force enabled:
Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
reinstall it before attempting a removal.
(Reading database ... 210448 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing dcp540cnlpr:i386 ...
start: Unknown job: lpd
dpkg: error processing dcp540cnlpr:i386 (--remove):
subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
dcp540cnlpr:i386


So back to square one. I'm not really desperate to reinstall for now and can always print fine from my laptop with 11.10 and suing the same printer with same drivers. Just curious what could have happened.
I may install the beta 12.04 once that is available. Thanks for all the help so far.

[OneLine]

Re: Cannot reinstall or remove damaged software.

Searching with the "Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should reinstall it before attempting a removal."

A hit -> http://blog.bodhizazen.net/linux/apt...oken-packages/

[assettt]

Re: Cannot reinstall or remove damaged software.

Thanks for the persistence. The infoe from the link did it.

cd /var/lib/dpkg/info
sudo rm dcp540cnlpr.*

Saved a me reinstall.