How to properly uninstall CouchPotato on Ubuntu Linux?

We have extensively covered how to install CouchPotato on various platforms but how do you properly uninstall CouchPotato on Ubuntu and other Linux systems? This is a question that has been asked a few times and so here is the guide. This Couch Potato uninstall guide will work irrespective of whether you used our CouchPotato Ubuntu installation guide or the easier Atomic CouchPotato installer. So let us see how to uninstall CouchPotato on Ubuntu. [Read: Video: Setup CouchPotato on Ubuntu 14.04 in one step]

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Uninstall CouchPotato on Ubuntu

While the method described below is for Ubuntu, you should be able to use it to uninstall Couch Potato Server on other Debian or Ubuntu based Linux distributions. The key is to have CouchPotato files installed in your home folder under .couchpotato. This is what our CouchPotato install guides do. If yours is installed in another folder, don't worry just change the path in the steps below and you should be able to remove CouchPotato completely. [Read: How to properly uninstall Sickbeard on Ubuntu Linux?]

1. Stop CouchPotato

First open terminal and stop any running CouchPotato instance with the following command:

sudo /etc/init.d/couchpotato stop

Then ensure that CouchPotato app is stopped:

sudo /etc/init.d/couchpotato status

You should see an output like this * couchpotato is not running.

2. Remove CouchPotato Autostart Entry

If you have your CouchPotato install to autostart on boot, then remove it with the following command:

sudo update-rc.d -f couchpotato remove

You should see an output that looks similar to the one below:

Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/couchpotato ...
   /etc/rc0.d/K20couchpotato
   /etc/rc1.d/K20couchpotato
   /etc/rc2.d/S20couchpotato
   /etc/rc3.d/S20couchpotato
   /etc/rc4.d/S20couchpotato
   /etc/rc5.d/S20couchpotato
   /etc/rc6.d/K20couchpotato

3. Delete CouchPotato Startup Scripts

While this optional, you may want to remove the two scripts below for complete CouchPotato uninstall.

sudo rm /etc/default/couchpotato
sudo rm /etc/init.d/couchpotato

Uninstalling CouchPotato on Ubuntu and other similar systems is very easy and running the above steps should proceed without any problems as shown in the screenshot below.

4. Remove Couch Potato Files

This again is optional. Following this step will remove all CouchPotato files including the database and settings. If you want to reinstall CouchPotato at a later date you will have configure CouchPotato and scan your database from scratch. [Read: SickBeard alternative: NzbDrone vs SickBeard]

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If you followed our installation guides and all the above steps worked without any issues then you may delete CouchPotato Files using the commands below:

cd ~
sudo rm -r .couchpotato

Again, this assumes that your CouchPotato files are located inside .couchpotato directory in your home folder. You may use ls -al command to verify this or change the path if you already know the location.

Sometimes it is necessary, especially if you are setting up your system, to uninstall Couch Potato Server and start over from scratch. In such scenarios the above method should help you uninstall CouchPotato on Ubuntu and other similar Linux distros.