While updating a newly installed Raspberry Pi 2 with Raspbian Linux, it seemed to hang while upgrading with:
sudo apt-get upgrade
After 10 minutes of inactivity I decided to reset the system.
As expected this caused problems.
After running:
sudo apt-get update
I noticed this error:
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
I tried running the suggested command:
sudo dpkg --configure -a
It fixed some problems, but it left me with:
dpkg: error processing package ntp (--configure): package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should reinstall it before attempting configuration Errors were encountered while processing: ntp
Various ways to reinstall and remove the ntp package were unsuccessful.
Eventually I found a solution here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/148715/how-to-fix-package-is-in-a-very-bad-inconsistent-state-error
sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq ntp sudo apt-get install ntp
Conclusion
If a package is broken on a Debian based Linux system it can be a solution to remove it forcefully with the –force-remove-reinstreq option for dpkg.