Re: 'apt-get dist-upgrade' not working.

[Joost Witteveen <joostje@foko.komputilo.org>]

In article <[🔎] 40274007.4040704@paradise.net.nz>, Adam Bogacki wrote:
> Hi, I'm running unstable and have not been able to do a successful
> 'apt-get dist-upgrade --fix-missing' for 2-3 weeks now.  That is a big 
> backlog in unstable.
> 
> The key message seems to be
> 
>> E: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/dpkg/status (1)
> 
> 'apt-get update' gives me the message
> 
>> W: Couldn't stat source package list http://mirror.pacific.net.au 
>> unstable/main Packages 
>> (/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.pacific.net.au_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-i386_Packages) 
>> - stat (2 No such file or directory)
>> E: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/dpkg/status (1)
>> E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

If te package file /var/lib/dpkg/status really is messed up, 
not much is going to work. Do you still have a file in
/var/lib/dpkg/status-old ?
If so, make a copy of it in some safe place (and also of
any messed-up /var/lib/dpkg/status file), and then maybe try

cp /var/lib/dpkg/status-old /var/lib/dpkg/status

and run again. I don't know what you can do if you really don't
have a status file any more.


-- 
joostje