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Another package I'm trying to install depends on the tzdata package, which remains unconfigured due to the following error:

$ sudo dpkg --configure tzdata
Current default time zone: 'America/New_York'
Local time is now:      Fri Feb 10 14:31:37 EST 2017.
Universal Time is now:  Fri Feb 10 19:31:37 UTC 2017.
Run 'dpkg-reconfigure tzdata' if you wish to change it.

debconf: DbDriver "templatedb": rename failed: Is a directory
dpkg: error processing package tzdata (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 tzdata

But, simple as tzdata seems to be, I can't figure out what/where/how templatedb is supposed to exist. I tried searching the files brought in with tzdata but got nothing:

$ sudo dpkg -L tzdata | grep templatedb
$

Where can I find templatedb, and what is it supposed to be, if not a directory? (Or, more generally, how can I get tzdata to configure correctly so I can move on?)

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  • Template database file is named template.dat. It is situated in /var/cache/debconf/ directory. May be there are some problems with access rights. Did you try to set tzdata under root account?
    – Oleg Bolden
    Commented Feb 10, 2017 at 21:52
  • @OlegBolden Thank you! That helped me figure out what was wrong. I'll post an answer for the sake of completeness.
    – p.koch
    Commented Feb 12, 2017 at 21:49

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Thanks to Oleg's comment, I found that my /var/cache/debconf/templates.dat file was, for some reason, a directory containing a single, empty file: poll.h. Not sure what put it there, but it seemed safe to delete, so I did. I then replaced templates.dat with templates.dat-old (there was also a templates.dat-new, neither of which were directories), ran sudo dpkg-reconfigure debconf, and then sudo dpkg --configure tzdata. Everything resolved fine.

This solved my issue, but I'm going to leave the question open in case someone else wants to give a more thorough explanation, since I don't really understand completely what all was going on.

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Normally it can be a problem with debconf package

sudo apt-get install --reinstall debconf
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