Cfrgtkky

:~$ sudo apt-get remove nginx* && sudo apt-get install nginx-full*



Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree       

Reading state information... Done



After this operation, 5,579 kB of additional disk space will be used.

Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

Get:1 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/universe amd64 nginx-full-dbg amd64 1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 [3,789 kB]

Fetched 3,789 kB in 33s (112 kB/s)                                             

Selecting previously unselected package nginx-common.

(Reading database ... 189767 files and directories currently installed.)

Preparing to unpack .../nginx-common_1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_all.deb ...

Unpacking nginx-common (1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) ...

Selecting previously unselected package nginx-full.

Preparing to unpack .../nginx-full_1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb ...

Unpacking nginx-full (1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) ...

Selecting previously unselected package nginx-full-dbg.

Preparing to unpack .../nginx-full-dbg_1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb ...

Unpacking nginx-full-dbg (1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) ...

Processing triggers for ufw (0.35-0ubuntu1) ...

Rules updated for profile 'Apache Full'

Rules updated for profile 'Nginx HTTP'



Processing triggers for systemd (229-4ubuntu4) ...

Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...

Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...

Setting up nginx-common (1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) ...

Setting up nginx-full (1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1) ...

Job for nginx.service failed because the control process exited with error code. See "systemctl status nginx.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.



invoke-rc.d: initscript nginx, action "start" failed.



dpkg: error processing package nginx-full (--configure):

 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of nginx-full-dbg:

 nginx-full-dbg depends on nginx-full (= 1.10.0-0ubuntu0.16.04.1); however:

  Package nginx-full is not configured yet.



dpkg: error processing package nginx-full-dbg (--configure):



 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.



                          Errors were encountered while processing:

 nginx-full



 nginx-full-dbg



E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Shutting down apache2 first before installing nginx should fix this problem:

sudo service apache2 stop

Andrew Chan provided the right answer for me. To extend his answer a bit, here's what you can do on the commandline;

stop apache2

sudo systemctl stop apache2.service

prevent apache2 to start at boot

sudo systemctl disable apache2.service

Reinstall nginx

sudo apt-get install nginx

I just had this issue, but the solution was slightly different.

Once I solved a simple site misconfiguration, I was able to update nginx.

Check your nginx error log:

sudo cat /var/log/nginx/error.log|less

Then try again:

sudo apt-get update;sudo apt-get upgrade

In my case the error is the server has IPv6 disabled.
Solution:

Edit /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default and comment IPv6 out:

listen [::]:80 default_server;

Reinstall nginx:

apt purge nginx

apt autoremove

apt install nginx

When I checked /var/log/nginx/error.log I saw that the installer was unable to open /var/cache/nginx/microcache

A directory listing showed there was no /var/cache/nginx directory, so I created it and the install succeeded.