Re: dpkg error

[Javier Barroso <javibarroso@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 7:53 PM, Faheem Mitha <faheem@email.unc.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm getting the following error on upgrade (debian Lenny). As suggested by
> the error message, there is some funny stuff in /var/lib/dpkg/available in
> the kdebase package section.
>
> Is this is a known issue? If not, can anyone suggest how to debug this? For
> the record, I've being using and adminstering Debian since 2001, and don't
> recall having ever seen an error like this before.
>
> Please CC me on any reply. Thanks.
>
>                                                   Regards, Faheem Mitha.
>
> merlin:/home/faheem# apt-get upgrade
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> The following packages have been kept back:
>  linux-image-2.6-686
> The following packages will be upgraded:
>  base-files bind9-host dnsutils firmware-iwlwifi gdm gtk2-engines-pixbuf
> imagemagick libbind9-40 libdns45 libgtk2.0-0
>  libgtk2.0-bin libgtk2.0-common libisc45 libisccc40 libisccfg40 liblwres40
> libmagick10 libpam-modules libpam-runtime
>  libpam0g libpq5 libsmbclient libvolume-id0 libwbclient0 linux-libc-dev
> openoffice.org openoffice.org-base
>  openoffice.org-base-core openoffice.org-calc openoffice.org-common
> openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-draw
>  openoffice.org-evolution openoffice.org-filter-mobiledev openoffice.org-gcj
> openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-gtk
>  openoffice.org-help-en-us openoffice.org-impress openoffice.org-java-common
> openoffice.org-math
>  openoffice.org-officebean openoffice.org-report-builder-bin
> openoffice.org-style-andromeda
>  openoffice.org-style-tango openoffice.org-writer postgresql postgresql-8.3
> postgresql-client-8.3 python-uno
>  texlive-bibtex-extra texlive-fonts-extra texlive-fonts-extra-doc
> texlive-generic-extra texlive-humanities
>  texlive-humanities-doc texlive-latex-extra texlive-latex-extra-doc
> texlive-math-extra texlive-pstricks
>  texlive-pstricks-doc texlive-publishers texlive-publishers-doc
> ttf-opensymbol udev xserver-xorg-core
>  xserver-xorg-video-savage
> 67 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0B/331MB of archives.
> After this operation, 3119kB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
> Extracting templates from packages: 100%
> Preconfiguring packages ...
> dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 11824 package
> `kdebase':
>  `Recommends' field, reference to `kdm': version contains ` '

It seems like /var/lib/dpkg/available is corrupt ? Does aptitude update help ?

If not,  'dpkg --clear-avail' , could help.