"You can workaround this by stopping mce, and then completing the update. # /etc/init.d/mce stop # dpkg --configure -a and maybe # apt-get -f install but you know that."
[...] If the update is interrupted (battery falling out of the device, say), the device tries to complete the update in 'rescue mode' (red text during booting). In that scenario, mce fails to configure for some reason. [...] mce can not be started when it is already running. That's why it fails to configure itself. I'd say that's a bug in mce.