Broken Package - Manually Deleted Scripts - Cannot Fix

[mcurran]

Hello:

Could someone please help me. I installed snort and it was failing to start during the bootup process, because I noticed the failed message during the bootup messages. So like an idiot: Instead of configuring snort and looking into the problem, I just manually deleted the startup scripts in init.d and every instance of symlinks in rc0.d through rc6.d. Now, when I tried to remove, reinstall, or fix the broken package - I can't get apt to do it with any success. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Please let me know.

Thanks,

Michael Curran

[Husse]

just manually deleted the startup scripts in init.d

Not all of them?? Because then you can not boot
Tell us what you deleted and I'll see what I can do
(I'm working my way through lots of posts now - no time earlier this week...)

[mcurran]

[SOLVED]

I opened nautilus as root and did a search for snort. Then I deleted every file and directory associated with the application that nautilus pulled up. I then reinstalled the snort package (same exact version) I downloaded manually from ubuntu Package Search, and then restarted and used Synaptic Package Manager to reinstall and then completely remove the application again to make sure it was a clean removal. Strangely: I reinstalled the package once again, and now it's working fine at startup... I hope this helps anyone who has similar problems when breaking packages by manually deleting items such as the startup scripts, intentionally or unintentionally; however, I'm not too confident that manually deleting all the application's files is a good idea, and should only be a last resort to correct a non-fixable package.

[Husse]

Fine - the thing with a manual delete is that you might delete one (or more) files too much or too little