Unable to install and then uninstall.

What is the error you get when trying to unistall?

See the attached log for an example.

Works for me (Dapper i386 up-to-date)

I get this error too. This is on an up to Dapper AMD64.

Allright, I did a bit more testing.

First I removed the 'set -e' from /var/lib/dpkg/info/firestarter.postrm so that the script wouldn't exit so quickly. After that 'dpkg --purge firestarter' completed without errors. Then I reinstalled firestarter and now it seems uninstalling works just fine. What a strange bug. :?

I had the same problem and followed Antti Koskinen's instructions, now it's gone. Dapper i686 up to date.

I had this same problem, too. After uninstall failed i wanted to know which files could not be deleted:

$ dpkg -L firestarter
/etc/firestarter
/etc/firestarter/non-routables
/etc/init.d/firestarter

Could it be that this problem is related to the fact that firestarter puts new files (configuration for the firewall) into /etc/firestarter. And then the purging routine wants to recursively delete the directory /etc/firestarter which it can't?

This would explain your success with the method above, even after reinstallation (since no new config files were created in the meantime).

I have the same issue on edgy and had the same on dapper (i386).
Bug confirmed.

I can also confirm this bug on dapper (i686).

BTW. Antti Koskinen's workaround works! Thank you!

I have also this bug in Edgy (firestarter version 1.0.3-1.2ubuntu3).

I'm not a developper and don't know the shell language, but if one remove "set -e" it works indeed. I manage to make the purge work without error by leaving "set -e" but removing some parts of the file (seems to request to remove a file that doesn't exist in a folder that doesn't exist??).

I just had this problem purging firestarter.

These were the files left behind for me

$ dpkg -L firestarter
/etc/dhclient-exit-hooks
/etc/firestarter
/etc/firestarter/non-routables
/etc/init.d/firestarter

Despite the listing it seemed to have removed everything ok except for removing a line it added to /etc/dhclient-exit-hooks. I had no other lines in this file except the one added by firestarter so I just moved the file out the way and ran the purge again. This time it completely without issue.

Re above - this was on Dapper btw.

Marked as duplicate of bug #83728 as it contains same information and a potential fix. Removing set -e is not good solution. It solves the symptom, but not the issue. Using alternative method to test if firestarter hook is still set would probably be better.