Can't use apt install at all after installing a deb package "intellij-idea-ultimate needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it"

Question

apt install does not work, for example:

$ apt install uget 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: The package intellij-idea-ultimate needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it.

This problem arose after I installed intellij idea using this .deb file from Launchpad.

Answer 1

Apparently, apt is trying to reinstall or update the intellij-idea-ultimate but the system does not find the corresponding .deb file.

As I know, IntelliJ Idea does not have an official repository you can use with apt or apt-get to install and update their dependencies. You usually use the official .tar.gz file or an unofficial repository to install IntelliJ.

If you are using the unofficial repository, you may...

• Try aptitude to solve any inconsistency.
• Download the .deb files from the unofficial ppa repository.

If you want to enable that PPA and install from it, you can run these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/apps
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install intellij-idea-community