Re: unable to parse package file; aptitude effectively dead.

[hendrik@topoi.pooq.com]

On Thu, Jan 04, 2007 at 08:04:43AM -0800, Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 04, 2007 at 10:45:29AM -0500, hendrik@topoi.pooq.com wrote:
> > While I'm waiting for someone to *fix* bug 405506, does anyone have an 
> > idea how to recover from it?  Is a reinstall in order?
> 
> I doubt it. you may have to use apt-get to install a fix but you
> shouldn't have to reinstall.
> 
> > 
> > Yesterday aptitude reported
> >   Unable to parse package file /var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates
> > This happened on an etch that was just installed the same day from a 
> > previous-day netinstall daily build.
> > 
> > The file does exist, and appears to be binary gibberish.
> > There's also a pkgstates.old file, about one minute older, in the same 
> > directory.  Should I try replacing pkgstates by pkgstates.old in the 
> > hope that will help?  I'm reluctant to do this without some idea just 
> > what role this file plays in aptitude.  It doesn't seem to be the 
> > downloaded, consolidated list of available packages, since updating has 
> > no effect on it.
> 
> 
> might as well try renaming the files, or hiding them all together and
> see what happens. I can't see that it will hurt, and you can always
> move them back. 

I've been told it's the file that tells aptitude which packages were 
installed as dependencies.

Considering that *both* these files are binary gibberish, and that 
pkgstates is a text file in all my other Debian systems (both sarge and 
etch) I'm starting to think that both of them are badly damaged, 
and there's no point trying.

Removing them altogether and hoping aptitude can recreate them might be 
a possibility.

-- hendrik