Can't remove a package

[Fenyx]

Just something to add insult to my injury in Dapper:

As I was browsing through the packages in Adept, I became curious regarding a certain package called kcemirror. I installed it, together with its dependencies librapi2 and libsycne0. After discovering that I couldn't use without installing some other things related to SynCe, I attempted to remove it. So I mark it for removal, seeing no signs of breakage. Clicking on Apply, it seemed to remove the packages. But then the good part comes: Adept notifies me that it can't remove kcemirror because of some error. And that's that. Now I can't remove that package either through any GUI or through apt.

This is the error message that I get from Adept:

There was an error commiting changes. Possibly there was a problem downloading some packages or the commit would break packages.

Take note that marking kcemirror to be removed didn't/doesn't show any problems.

I get this in the dpkg run area:

dpkg: error processing kcemirror (--remove):
Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
reinstall it before attempting a removal.
Errors were encountered while processing:
kcemirror
dpkg run finished!

This is what I get in Konsole:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  kcemirror
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
8 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 340kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
dpkg: error processing kcemirror (--remove):
Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
reinstall it before attempting a removal.
terminate called after throwing an instance of 'std::logic_error'
  what():  basic_string::_S_construct NULL not valid
Aborted
:~$ Errors were encountered while processing:
kcemirror

And this is what I get when trying to "reinstall" kcemirror (ignore the debconf errors ):

:~$ sudo apt-get install kcemirror
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
kcemirror is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
8 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/88.2kB of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (Dialog frontend requires a screen at least 13 lines tall and 31 columns wide.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
Selecting previously deselected package kcemirror.
(Reading database ... 105332 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace kcemirror 0.1.4-3ubuntu1 (using .../kcemirror_0.1.4-3ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement kcemirror ...
touch: missing file operand
Try `touch --help' for more information.
dpkg: warning - old post-removal script returned error exit status 1
dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ...
touch: missing file operand
Try `touch --help' for more information.
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/kcemirror_0.1.4-3ubuntu1_i386.deb (--unpack):
subprocess new post-removal script returned error exit status 1
touch: missing file operand
Try `touch --help' for more information.
dpkg: error while cleaning up:
subprocess post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/kcemirror_0.1.4-3ubuntu1_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Other than that package, I can install and remove other packages successfully, except that the kcemirror error springs up at the end of every successful install/uninstall process.

Really pulling my hair on this one. Any ideas?

[sky]

Re: Can't remove a package

Hi,

Did you try to purge the package ?
sudo dpkg --purge <package>

Maybe it can work...

[Fenyx]

Re: Can't remove a package

Tried everything from --purge to -f to --force-all (in dpkg). No luck.

Anyway, I'm going to have a fresh install probably later. I'm getting tired of this game, though...