Package is in a very bad inconsistent state???

[dgcarter]

Is this problem fixable? I have tried googleing, and everything I know and I just can't fix it.

I'm trying to fix up my Openfire XMPP Server package, this is what i get:

root@inter-net:~# apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: The package openfire needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it.
root@inter-net:~# dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: error processing openfire (--configure):
 Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
 reinstall it before attempting configuration.
Errors were encountered while processing:
 openfire

[Happy_Man]

I would suggest clearing APT's cache of .debs..... it's in /var/cache/apt/archives. Perhaps that will do the trick....

[omkarwagh]

run the dpkg in the terminal. ive had the same error happen to me thrice and i guess this is what i did

look very closely in the error messages. all three times with me at least it said something like some particular file is missing or does not exist.
solution:- simply create a blank file of that name in the directory where the error occurs. then ask dpkg to remove the package. that worked for me at least.

[kewldude606]

I know this thread is a bit old but I just stumbled upon it in a search and wanted to share how I fixed my problem.

I did:

cd /tmp/
aptitude download <package>
sudo dpkg -i <package>

dpkg came up with an unresolved dependency, so I used aptitude to install it. Aptitude then finished the installation of the 1st package and all was done .