dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/available'

[Bill Moseley <moseley@hank.org>]

Any ideas about how to fix?

    laptop:/home/moseley# apt-get update
    Get:1 http://bumby unstable/main Packages [3755kB]
    [...]
    Fetched 5384kB in 1m14s (72.0kB/s)                                                 
    E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem. 

    laptop:/home/moseley# dpkg --configure -a
    dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 1:
     EOF after field name `'

I've tried removing /var/lib/dpkg/available and also copying that file
from another machine running Unstable.

(Note that I'm using apt-proxy here [bumby is the machine], but I've
also tried by using debian.org archives directly in sources.list.)

Doing the same operation with Aptitude results in:

    Preconfiguring packages ...
    dpkg-query: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 1:
     EOF after field name `'
    dpkg: --compare-versions takes three arguments: <version> <relation> <version>

    Type dpkg --help for help about installing and deinstalling packages [*];
    Use dselect for user-friendly package management;
    Type dpkg -Dhelp for a list of dpkg debug flag values;
    Type dpkg --force-help for a list of forcing options;
    Type dpkg-deb --help for help about manipulating *.deb files;
    Type dpkg --licence for copyright licence and lack of warranty (GNU GPL) [*].

    Options marked [*] produce a lot of output - pipe it through `less' or `more' !
    dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 1:
     EOF after field name `'
    E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
    Ack!  Something bad happened while installing packages.  Trying to recover:
    dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 1:
     EOF after field name `'
    Reading Package Lists... Done             
    Building Dependency Tree       
    Reading extended state information      
    Initializing package states... Done
    Reading task descriptions... Done  




-- 
Bill Moseley
moseley@hank.org