Installation of mysql-server crashed, can’t reinstall

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I tried to install the mysql-server package on my Ubuntu VPS. The apt-get process crashed and I had to kill it. Now I have this error message whenever I try to install it again:

$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  mysql-server
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
4 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/6,452 B of archives.
After this operation, 98.3 kB of additional disk space will be used.
debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
Selecting previously deselected package mysql-server.
(Reading database ... 36812 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mysql-server (from .../mysql-server_5.1.61-0ubuntu0.11.10.1_all.deb) ...
Setting up mysql-server-5.1 (5.1.61-0ubuntu0.11.10.1) ...
debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.1 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up man-db (2.6.0.2-2) ...
debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
dpkg: error processing man-db (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up libapache2-mod-php5 (5.3.6-13ubuntu3.6) ...
    debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
dpkg: error processing libapache2-mod-php5 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up php5-cli (5.3.6-13ubuntu3.6) ...
debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
dpkg: error processing php5-cli (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                          dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
 mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.1; however:
  Package mysql-server-5.1 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
                                                          Errors were encountered while processing:
 mysql-server-5.1
 man-db
 libapache2-mod-php5
 php5-cli
 mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Please help, it’s kind of urgend.

Answer

run fuser /var/cache/debconf/config.dat to find the process which locked that file. (you might have to install the psmisc package to get fuser). I’d try to kill that process (but gracefully, not with -9)

Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Lanbo , Answer Author : stew

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