dselect and dpkg parse error in the status file

[Dimitris Dracopoulos <d.dracopoulos@searchspace.com>]

Hi,

I am not able to run dselect and dpkg any more (I think this happened after
a crash). 

Dselect starts but does not let me select any files and exits (same problem
with dpkg -i), both giving the following error message:

dpkg: parse error, in file /var/lib/dpkg/status near line 22784 package
`xezmlm`: 
file details field 'Filename' not allowed in status file.

When I manually delete the xezmlm package entry entry form the status file,
I get a similar error for a different package, different line.

Any ideas out there of why this is happening?

Please reply directly by email to me.

Cheers

Dimitris