package dictionaries-common 1.20.5 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 255

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Please forgive me or gently redirect me if I'm not observing proper Ubuntu 1 etiquette. Anyways, instead of reporting another bug, I searched and found this one. My feeling is my comment is not a worthless "me too" and could help root cause the issue.

Summary:

1. My issue differs in that I upgraded from LTS 12.

2. Also adding additional error messages. Other packages failed but I my approach was to focus on the dictionaries-common since that seem cause the most headache when logging into my desktop.

Ubuntu is a VM inside VMware Fusion 5.0.5. I took a VM snapshot before upgrading to LTS 14 so I can rollback if I did something wrong. Desktop graphics seems a "little janky" compared to LTS 12 (don't know how to describe without huge paragraphs) in Komodo and Chrome so I am going to approach LTS 14 with caution, not make many system changes and rollback if I have further problems.

Thank you Ubuntu for your work you've done to make Linux easier to use.

Details:

Upgraded from LTS 12 to 14 via command line:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

sudo do-release-upgrade

On the upgrade, everything seemed good until the end when packages for dictionaries and spelling failed to install.

Error message from install dialog is below.

// Begin error message

Errors were encountered while processing:
 dictionaries-common
 aspell
 aspell-en
 myspell-en-za
 myspell-en-gb
 myspell-en-au
 hyphen-en-us
 mythes-en-us
 openoffice.org-hyphenation
Error in function:

A fatal error occurred

Please report this as a bug and include the files
/var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log and /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt.log in
your report. The upgrade has aborted.
Your original sources.list was saved in
/etc/apt/sources.list.distUpgrade.

SystemError: E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Could not install the upgrades

The upgrade has aborted. Your system could be in an unusable state. A
recovery will run now (dpkg --configure -a).

Setting up dictionaries-common (1.20.5) ...
update-default-wordlist: Question empty but elements installed for class "wordlist"
  dictionaries-common/default-wordlist: return code: "0", value: ""
  Choices: , Manual symlink setting
  shared/packages-wordlist: return code: "10" owners/error: "shared/packages-wordlist doesn't exist"
  Installed elements: american (American English), british (British English)

  Please see "/usr/share/doc/dictionaries-common/README.problems", section
  "Debconf database corruption" for recovery info.

update-default-wordlist: Selected wordlist ""
does not correspond to any installed package in the system
and no alternative wordlist could be selected.
dpkg: error processing package dictionaries-common (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 255
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of myspell-en-za:
 myspell-en-za depends on dictionaries-common (>= 0.10) | openoffice.org-updatedicts; however:
  Package dictionaries-common is not configured yet.
  Package openoffice.org-updatedicts is not installed.
  Package dictionaries-common which provides openoffice.org-updatedicts is not configured yet.

dp...

In case standard info is needed for comments or cross-checking:

1.) $ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Release: 14.04

2.) $ apt-cache policy dictionaries-common
dictionaries-common:
  Installed: 1.20.5
  Candidate: 1.20.5
  Version table:
 *** 1.20.5 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

In Comment #3, please disregard remark on desktop seeming a "little janky". Applications Chrome and Komodo are now fine. My guess is the "jankiness" was from the Error Report dialogue being active. Error Report dialogue was running under a more privileged user than what I run my desktop (for extra-extra security, my desktop user does not belong to 'sudo' group).

I'm still going to approach LTS 14 with caution and keep my LTS 12 snapshot in case I need to revert.