Comment 3 for bug 540686

I am getting a similar error. First of all whenever I run 'aptitude update' the update wont finish because I get this error:

Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com lucid/main Packages [1,374kB]
E: Method bzip2 has died unexpectedly!
E: Sub-process bzip2 received signal 9.
E: Method /usr/lib/apt/methods/bzip2 did not start correctly
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

Secondly, whenever I run 'aptitude upgrade' I get an error with initramfs-tools. It tell me to run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a'. When I do, I get this:

Setting up initramfs-tools (0.92bubuntu69) ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)

Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-17-generic
Killed
update-initramfs: failed for /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-17-generic
dpkg: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

Therefore, I can not update or upgrade my system right now on Lucid. I am basically at a standstill.