Comment 3 for bug 214456

Not sure if this is fixed or not. I just got the same error trying to upgrade from 3.0-1ubuntu4 to the version 3.0-1ubuntu6

The following packages will be upgraded:
  ibmasm-utils
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/15.9kB of archives.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database ... 99315 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace ibmasm-utils 3.0-1ubuntu4 (using .../ibmasm-utils_3.0-1ubuntu6_i386.deb) ...
Stopping ibmasm:
invoke-rc.d: initscript ibmasm, action "stop" failed.
dpkg: warning - old pre-removal script returned error exit status 3
dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ...
Stopping ibmasm:
invoke-rc.d: initscript ibmasm, action "stop" failed.
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/ibmasm-utils_3.0-1ubuntu6_i386.deb (--unpack):
 subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 3
 * \nWaiting for ibmasm device to appear (2 seconds timeout)
. . Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/ibmasm-utils_3.0-1ubuntu6_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)