Re: corrupted dpkg?

[Sridhar Srinivasan <sridhars@nc.rr.com>]

Kent West wrote:

> Sridhar Srinivasan wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I was upgrading mozilla on my Debian unstable box when the power went 
> > and my box crashed. On rebooting, it turns out my filesystem was 
> > messed by and required manual fsck'ing. Now whenever I try to 
> > install/upgrade anything, my dpkg is complaining about mozilla and 
> > doesn't let me do anything.
> >
> > Below is a sample of the errors that it reports (this one was 
> > generated while trying to reinstall debconf).
> >
> > I googled for a while looking for solutions. The suggestions I found 
> > invovled rebuilding status and available files in the /var/lib/dpkg/ 
> > directory but nothing seems to work. Can anyone give any suggestions 
> > to try, short of reinstalling?
> >
> > TIA,
> > sridhar
> >
> > Error output follows:
> >
> > Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Format/822.pm line 57, <$__ANONIO__> line 5069.
> > Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Format/822.pm line 57, <$__ANONIO__> line 5069.
> > Use of uninitialized value in hash element at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 51, <$__ANONIO__> 
> > chunk 5069.
> > Use of uninitialized value in hash element at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 51, <$__ANONIO__> 
> > chunk 5069.
> > Use of uninitialized value in exists at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Cache.pm line 29, <> line 4.
> > Use of uninitialized value in exists at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Template.pm line 66, <GEN1> line 6.
> > Use of uninitialized value in exists at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Cache.pm line 29, <GEN1> line 6.
> > Use of uninitialized value in exists at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Template.pm line 66, <GEN1> line 6.
> > Use of uninitialized value in exists at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Cache.pm line 29, <GEN1> line 6.
> > Can't call method "choices" on an undefined value at 
> > /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Question.pm line 85, <GEN1> line 6.
> >
> > dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `mozilla-xft' 
> > missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
> > dpkg: error processing 
> > /var/cache/apt/archives/liblocale-gettext-perl_1.01-17_i386.deb 
> > (--unpack):
> I'm no expert, but what I'd try is to find the mozilla-xft.deb and 
> liblocal-gettext....deb files, perhaps in /var/cache/apt/archives, and 
> try installing them manually with "dpkg -i libloc....deb".
I tried that for other files. Results in the following. The same error 
occurs no matter which package I try to install. I think i need to go 
into some file and either delete or modify the entry for mozilla but I'm 
not able to figure out which file it is.

degoba:/var/cache/apt/archives# dpkg -i libtext-iconv-perl_1.2-2_i386.deb
Selecting previously deselected package libtext-iconv-perl.
(Reading database ...
dpkg: serious warning: files list file for package `mozilla-xft' 
missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
dpkg: error processing libtext-iconv-perl_1.2-2_i386.deb (--install):
files list file for package `mozilla' contains empty filename
Errors were encountered while processing:
libtext-iconv-perl_1.2-2_i386.deb
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.