Re: dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file

["Mumia W." <mumia.w.18.spam+nospam@earthlink.net>]

On 08/07/2006 11:06 AM, kevin bailey wrote:
> Mumia W. wrote:
>
> > On 08/07/2006 04:49 AM, kevin bailey wrote:
> > > [...]
> > > Preconfiguring packages ...
> > > dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
> > > E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
> > > Ack!  Something bad happened while installing packages.  Trying to
> > > recover:
> > Somehow, a status override was set to the group Debian-exim, 
> > but the group was never created. You might be able to create 
> > the group, or you could remove the status override.
> >
> > FYI, on my system, the Debian-exim group has a gid of 102.
> >
> > > Thanks for any quick pointers.
> > >
> > > As this is a vanilla install I may just go to the site and reinstall the 
> > > OS.
> > Or you could just do that :)
> >
> > > Debian has never given me this type of problem before so it may be 
> > > something weird or something I've done.
> > >
> > > Thanks again,
> > >
> > > Kevin
> > Perhaps an install was interrupted.
>
> Maybe...
>
> I deleted the contents of the /var/lib/dpkg/statoverride file and the 
> packages can now be updated and the error does not show.
>
> I'm not entirely comfortable with this - will need to look further into the 
> statoverride file to see what it does.
>
> Thanks for your help,
>
> Kevin

Unless you made a backup of the file, deleting 
/var/log/dpkg/statoverride was probably not a good idea. While 
the statoverrides are not critical, they help you install 
different packages that like to stomp all over each other's 
files and packages that don't set the right 
ownership/permissions on their files.

Read the docs: man dpkg-statoverride