Fix the Error "debconf DbDriver "config" /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process Resource temporarily unavailable

Published on: 02 June 2020

You have encountered the above error in Debian or Debian based GNU/Linux Distribution.

This may cause problems like:

- errors in sudo apt-get update, sudo apt-get upgrade, sudo apt-get install, and other processes.
- dpkg: error processing package
- post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
- Errors were encountered while processing
- E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Solution

• Step 1. Execute command in terminal

sudo fuser -v /var/cache/debconf/config.dat

• Step 2. You will get result in following format. Copy the PID from it.

  USER        PID ACCESS COMMAND

• Step 3. Execute command. Replace PID with your actual PID. If the first command works, then second command will give output “No such process”

  sudo kill PID
  or
  sudo kill -9 PID

• Step 4. Now you will not get the error.