dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

I got this error while installing ubuntu-restricted-extras:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

So I ran that in terminal:

vennesa@vennesa-ThinkPad-R61:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
Setting up update-notifier-common (0.126) ...
flashplugin-installer: downloading http://archive.canonical.com/pool/partner/a/adobe-flashplugin/adobe-flashplugin_11.2.202.270.orig.tar.gz

Since then I can't install any thing. What do I do?

Solution 1:

I find out an easy way, if sudo dpkg --configure -a wasting so much of time in installing your file just give abort the process and give sudo dpkg --remove -a it will remove all the uninstalled files and if you want you can install it again by giving sudo apt-get install your_soft_name.

Solution 2:

Upon returning to installing Gnome via sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop, that was cut off by a power outage and I experienced exactly this issue.

I chose to issue the sudo dpkg --configure -a and then lost my terminal window forever in Windows Hyper-V 2012 manager. I was able to connect to my Linux box using SSH (PuTTY) from my Windows 7 Pro client though no problem.

Solution 3:

After searching a lot I got a satisfactory result:

I found some places saying to run commands:

sudo apt-get install -f
sudo dpkg --configure -a 

But none of those above worked.

The solution that worked for me:

sudo dpkg --configure --pending

Hope I have helped.