Debconf broken

["Tille, Andreas" <TilleA@rki.de>]

Hello,

I observed that all my intents to install/deinstall packages using dpkg
or apt-get are frozen at a certain state.  A `ps ax` showed the following
example call:

  /usr/bin/perl -w /usr/share/debconf/frontend /var/lib/dpkg/info/apt-listchanges.postrm purge

To track down the problem I tried a "set -x" in this script and it
stopped at:

  exec /usr/share/debconf/frontend /var/lib/dpkg/info/apt-listchanges.postrm purge

Guessing that there is a problem with the debconf database I tried

  dpkg-reconfigure debconf

which also leads to no output at all and a strace endet in

   fork()                                  = 8104
   wait4(-1,

This is the end of my knowledge to track down the problem deeper.
I have to say that I tried yesterday gkdebconf which perhaps might did
some harm to the debconf database.

Any hint how to fix this and moreover make sure that this problem would
not reapear on a not as patient user as me?

Kind regards

       Andreas.