Score:3

Ubuntu

Accidentally rejected nvidia-cudnn license install with apt, now I can't uninstall it

McAngus

10/28/23, 9:33 AM

I tried installing nvidia-cudnn and was being a bit fast and lose with the prompts. I accidentally hit reject when trying to install it. Now when I try to uninstall I get the following error:

$ sudo apt purge nvidia-cudnn -y
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED
  nvidia-cudnn*
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 1 to remove and 3 not to upgrade.
After this operation, 45.1 kB disk space will be freed.
(Reading database ... 203730 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing nvidia-cudnn (8.2.4.15~cuda11.4) ...
Purging cuDNN installation from /usr
dpkg: error processing package nvidia-cudnn (--remove):
 installed nvidia-cudnn package pre-removal script subprocess returned error exit status 1
dpkg: too many errors, stopping
Errors were encountered while processing:
 nvidia-cudnn
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Manually removing sudo rm -r /usr/share/doc/nvidia-cudnn and sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/info/nvidia-cudnn* then sudo apt purge nvidia-cudnn doesn't seem to do the trick. When I try and install it again, i'm not prompted for the license anymore. I've tried rebooting in between "uninstalling" and reinstalling. Where is the license accepted/rejected information kept? How can I force it to prompt me with the license again?

Both before and after the messup I used this command to install cudnn sudo apt install nvidia-cudnn

Now all I get is:

$ sudo apt install nvidia-cudnn 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed
  nvidia-cudnn
0 to upgrade, 1 to newly install, 0 to remove and 0 not to upgrade.
Need to get 13.2 kB of archives.
After this operation, 45.1 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/multiverse amd64 nvidia-cudnn amd64 8.2.4.15~cuda11.4 [13.2 kB]
Fetched 13.2 kB in 0s (971 kB/s)        
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package nvidia-cudnn.
(Reading database ... 203718 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../nvidia-cudnn_8.2.4.15~cuda11.4_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking nvidia-cudnn (8.2.4.15~cuda11.4) ...
Setting up nvidia-cudnn (8.2.4.15~cuda11.4) ...

659

2 + 5

package-management

apt

nvidia

dpkg

David

10/28/23, 9:36 AM

Please edit the question and add the exact command you used to install it . Yes it matters.

McAngus

10/28/23, 9:37 AM

Sorry! @David I've added the command.

David

10/28/23, 10:30 AM

Is it installed correctly now?

user10489

10/28/23, 11:30 AM

If you know which package is misinstalled, you could try dpkg-reconfigure to fix it

McAngus

10/28/23, 11:19 PM

@David It's not. I still get errors trying to uninstall it. dpkg-reconfigure didn't seem to help. It just output `Purging cuDNN installation from /usr` and then `sudo apt remove nvidia-cudnn` gave the same error as before.

Score:4

Ubuntu

user1646442

11/3/23, 1:02 AM

The uninstall process fails as the pre-removal script (/var/lib/dpkg/info/nvidia-cudnn.prerm) returns non-zero exit status. Inside, the pre-removal script calls update-nvidia-cudnn -p located in /usr/sbin/update-nvidia-cudnn which after line 164 (echo Purging cuDNN installation from ${PREFIX}) runs a command purge_cudnn ${PREFIX} that fails.

I was able to fix the issue by forcing exit 0 from update-nvidia-cudnn -p, by adding exit 0 after line 164 in file /usr/sbin/update-nvidia-cudnn.

To sum up, edit the end of file /usr/sbin/update-nvidia-cudnn to:

...
elif test "${DO_PURGE}" -ne 0; then
    echo Purging cuDNN installation from ${PREFIX}
    exit 0  # added
    purge_cudnn ${PREFIX}
fi

and the uninstall process becomes possible. Then if nvidia-cudnn is installed again, the installer will ask you again to agree to the license.

+ 1

Brian D

7/26/24, 3:32 PM

the `purge_cudnn` function in that file essentially runs `rm -rv ...` on a bunch of files, so by exiting before that you're skipping their removal and essentially doing nothing at all?

Score:1

Ubuntu

David

10/28/23, 10:29 AM

To remove an app you have installed the correct way to do so is the reverse command of the install.

sudo apt install nvidia-cudnn

This is the command you used to do the install. Therefore the command to remove the app would be.

sudo apt remove nvidia-cudnn

A force remove is a bad idea and may leave bits behind.

+ 1

McAngus

10/28/23, 11:17 PM

remove gives me the same error as purge (see my question for full output) `Errors were encountered while processing: nvidia-cudnn`

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Accidentally rejected nvidia-cudnn license install with apt, now I can't uninstall it

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