libpam-ck-connector causing apt-get to fail

Question

I used apt-get autoremove on my Debian server and now apt-get won't install or remove anything as it keeps trying but failing to remove libpam-ck-connector.

When trying to install anything… for example, apt-get install php5

(Reading database ... 28566 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing libpam-ck-connector:armhf ...
dpkg: error processing libpam-ck-connector:armhf (--remove):
unable to securely remove '/usr/share/doc/libpam-ck-connector/changelog.gz': Not a directory
Errors were encountered while processing:
 libpam-ck-connector:armhf
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I tried to run apt-get install libpam-ck-connector and got this…

libpam-ck-connector is already the newest version.
libpam-ck-connector set to manually installed.
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libck-connector0
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 86 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/117 kB of archives.
After this operation, 96.3 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Selecting previously unselected package libck-connector0:armhf.
(Reading database ... 28560 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libck-connector0:armhf (from .../libck-connector0_0.4.5-3.1_armhf.deb ) ...
Setting up libck-connector0:armhf (0.4.5-3.1) ...
dpkg: error processing libpam-ck-connector:armhf (--configure):
 package libpam-ck-connector:armhf is not ready for configuration
 cannot configure (current status `half-installed')
Errors were encountered while processing:
 libpam-ck-connector:armhf
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Any ideas on how to work around this?

Answer 1

It looks like your libpam-ck-connector package is no longer complete, probably by a manual remove of 'usr/share/doc/libpam-ck-connector/changelog.gz'.

You could try an explicit apt-get remove libpam-ck-connector or if that does not work, force a reinstall with apt-get install --reinstall libpam-ck-connector before doing the manual remove.

Removing more files/directories by hand such as in your comment might work, but could easily leave additional cruft floating around on the system.