Bug#158999: dpkg: short read in buffer_copy

[Eric Van Buggenhaut <ericvb@debian.org>]

Package: dpkg
Version: 1.9.21
Severity: important

Hi,

I don't know if this is due to an error in the .deb or in dpkg itself.

When I try to install a package which replaces another one I get this
error:

femto:/home/eric[0]# dpkg -i tmp/mplayer-686_0.90pre6-0.4_i386.deb 
dpkg: considering removing mplayer-custom in favour of mplayer-686 ...
dpkg: yes, will remove mplayer-custom in favour of mplayer-686.
(Reading database ... 57905 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mplayer-686 (from .../mplayer-686_0.90pre6-0.4_i386.deb) ...
dpkg-deb (subprocess): short read in buffer_copy (failed to write to pipe in copy)
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste returned error exit status 2
dpkg: error processing tmp/mplayer-686_0.90pre6-0.4_i386.deb (--install):
 short read in buffer_copy (backend dpkg-deb during `./usr/bin/mplayer')
Errors were encountered while processing:
 tmp/mplayer-686_0.90pre6-0.4_i386.deb
femto:/home/eric[0]# 

I've never seen this error before. What am I supposed to do ?

Thanks.

-- System Information
Debian Release: testing/unstable
Architecture: i386
Kernel: Linux femto 2.4.13 #2 lun nov 19 19:07:30 CET 2001 i686
Locale: LANG=fr_BE@euro, LC_CTYPE=fr_BE@euro

Versions of packages dpkg depends on:
ii  libc6                    2.2.5-10        GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libncurses5              5.2.20020112a-8 Shared libraries for terminal hand
ii  libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2   1:2.95.4-10     The GNU stdc++ library