# Ubuntu 14.04 Purging ElasticSeach **URL:** \ **Category:** Elasticsearch\ **Created:** [February 24, 2019, 2:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695 "2019-02-24T02:56:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![txu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@txu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/txu)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 2:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695/1 "2019-02-24T02:56:43Z")
Hello, I am a coop student trying to use elastic search for the first time. However, I ran into a few problem while trying to initially use elastic search after installation and also during the uninstall process. I am using a Ubuntu 14.04 with 6.6.1 elastic search. When I initially installed and started the elastic search service, I can see the default ports 9200 and 9300 listening but when I used curl -X GET '[http://localhost:9200](http://localhost:9200)' the return is simply empty, like when you run a long script with no progress outputs, and I have to ctrl-z out of it. No errors or any outputs. However, currently I wish to reinstall an older version of elasticsearch but during uninstall using sudo apt-get --purge autoremove elasticsearch I get an error message: ```auto Removing elasticsearch (6.6.1) ... Stopping elasticsearch service...Failed to issue method call: Unit elasticsearch.service not loaded. dpkg: error processing package elasticsearch (--remove): subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 5 Failed to issue method call: Unit systemd-sysctl.service failed to load: No such file or directory. See system logs and 'systemctl status systemd-sysctl.service' for details. ### NOT starting on installation, please execute the following statements to configure elasticsearch service to start automatically using systemd sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service ### You can start elasticsearch service by executing sudo systemctl start elasticsearch.service chown: cannot access ‘/var/lib/elasticsearch’: No such file or directory dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: elasticsearch ``` I did post this question on askubuntu but no luck yet: > Any help is greatly appreciated! ---
**Author:** ![Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/christian_dahlqvist/32/4617_2.png) [@Christian\_Dahlqvist](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/Christian_Dahlqvist)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 7:31am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695/2 "2019-02-24T07:31:25Z")
Why are you running such an old version of Ubuntu? ---
**Author:** ![txu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@txu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/txu)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 2:19pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695/3 "2019-02-24T14:19:38Z")
Unfortunately it is not up to me, the server I SSH to simply has that version ---
**Author:** ![pjanzen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pjanzen/32/13756_2.png) [@pjanzen](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pjanzen)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 7:11pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695/4 "2019-02-24T19:11:25Z")
Try: > sudo apt-get --purge remove elasticsearch if that fails you can check if elasticsearch is still installed with > dpkg -l | grep elasticsearch ---
**Author:** ![txu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@txu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/txu)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2019, 2:47pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695/5 "2019-02-27T14:47:50Z")
Thanks for the suggestion but this is still the result: ``` xuyou@MBMORDA646277D:/usr/lib/systemd$ sudo apt-get --purge remove elasticsearch Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be REMOVED: elasticsearch* 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 346 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 168 MB disk space will be freed. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y (Reading database ... 236574 files and directories currently installed.) Removing elasticsearch (6.6.1) ... Stopping elasticsearch service...Failed to issue method call: Unit elasticsearch.service not loaded. dpkg: error processing package elasticsearch (--purge): subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 5 Failed to issue method call: Unit systemd-sysctl.service failed to load: No such file or directory. See system logs and 'systemctl status systemd-sysctl.service' for details. ### NOT starting on installation, please execute the following statements to configure elasticsearch service to start automatically using systemd sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl enable elasticsearch.service ### You can start elasticsearch service by executing sudo systemctl start elasticsearch.service chown: cannot access ‘/var/lib/elasticsearch’: No such file or directory dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: elasticsearch E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) ``` and when I check is elasticsearch is still there: ``` xuyou@MBMORDA646277D:/usr/lib/systemd$ dpkg -l | grep elasticsearch pF elasticsearch 6.6.1 all Elasticsearch is a distributed RESTful search engine built for the cloud. Reference documentation can be found at https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/index.html and the 'Elasticsearch: The Definitive Guide' book can be found at https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/guide/current/index.html ``` ---
**Author:** ![pjanzen](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/pjanzen/32/13756_2.png) [@pjanzen](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pjanzen)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695/6 "2019-02-27T16:21:21Z")
You need to get creative here.. it fails because it cannot find a directory. Create it ```auto sudo mkdir -p /var/lib/elasticsearch ``` and try again.. Look at the error, read it and work with it. This is my mantra... ---
**Author:** ![txu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@txu](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/txu)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2019, 2:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695/7 "2019-03-01T14:52:18Z")
Thanks for your suggestion, I went down the rabbit hole of following the error messages and doing what it says but eventually I just used `ls -l /var/lib/dpkg/info | grep -i elasticsearch` and then removing those files and it seemed to work as dpkg no longer returns error code 1 and elasticsearch no longer seems to be on the server. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2019, 2:52pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/ubuntu-14-04-purging-elasticseach/169695/8 "2019-03-29T14:52:19Z")
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