It seems that base-installer is failing in some way that is not usual and is not trapped with a useful message. I suggest you use the shell on the second console to edit /var/lib/dpkg/info/base-installer.postinst (with nano) and add a "set -x" line near the top of the program, then the third virtual console will have some lines starting with "+" after base-installer fails, and the last few of these should point to the prolem. -- see shy jo
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