How do I UNHOLD a non-existent package?

[Adam Warner <lists@consulting.net.nz>]

Hi all,

I used

echo "<package name> hold" | dpkg --set-selections

To put a package on hold but it turned out I used the wrong name. And it
is sitting in the package database as held:

dpkg --get-selections <package name>

Shows that the non-existent package is currently being held. Plus an
apt-get install shows that the package exists in the database but has no
installation candidate!

It is possible that non-one in the world has ever answered how to unhold
a non-existent package :-)

When the unhold question has been asked in the past the advice was to
install the package, but that is clearly not relevant in this case.

Thanks for your help,
Adam