--- Begin Message ---
- To: submit@bugs.debian.org
- Subject: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/dpkg/status
- From: Sascha Wüstemann <sascha@killerhippy.de>
- Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:39:03 +0200
- Message-id: <20060619223903.GA20980@killerhippy.de>
Package: dpkg
Version: 1.13.19
Error messages:
...
Hit ftp://ftp.gwdg.de testing/contrib Sources
Fetched 2B in 5s (0B/s)
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/dpkg/status (1)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
Command executed as root: aptitude update
alternate command as root: apt-get update
Description: Without any transparent reason, aptitude update fails with no
further error messages but the two above. I expect aptitude update to work
as normal as before. I contacted lokal support from the LUG-BS and asked at
the german debian-user mailinglist with no error correction available but a
workaround. The file /var/lib/dpkg/status is available for download from
http://www.killerhippy.de/downloads/var_lib_dpkg_status as it is very long
to send via email. It does not seem corrupt, nor has it somehow changed its
file-rights so it _is_ readable and the error is misleading.
One of the LUG-BS could strace the location in the status file when the
process fails to continue: It is the otrs section beginning at line 12229.
When deleting this sections, the error disappears is the report.
I have not yet tried to "repair" or replaced the status file because there are
many questions I would like to be answered before, e.g. do the commands
mentioned at section 6.3.4 of the debian-referenz recreate orphan information
when rebuilding the status file by reinstalling everything used later by
aptitude? How to avoid mess with adjusted plain text files which come with a
package, e.g. php-files when doing so?
Files at /var/backup were identical or much smaller, so I could not take
one of them, because I don't know how the system behaves with an
incomplete status-file and I would like to have a clean solution.
I hope I have hit the right package.
Correction or patch: Me is not capable of the c-programming language, so
there is none, nor do I know where to begin.
Details of the configuration:
---config-details-start---
/etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg:
# dpkg configuration file
#
# This file can contain default options for dpkg. All command-line
# options are allowed. Values can be specified by putting them after
# the option, separated by whitespace and/or an `=' sign.
#
# Log status changes and actions to a file.
log /var/log/dpkg.log
/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70debconf:
// Pre-configure all packages with debconf before they are installed.
// If you don't like it, comment it out.
DPkg::Pre-Install-Pkgs {"/usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt || true";};
/etc/apt/preferences
Package: *
Pin: release a=testing
Pin-Priority: 999
Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 200
Package: *
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 200
Package: binutils
Pin: release a=unstable
Pin-Priority: 1002
/etc/apt/sources.list
#deb copy:///cdrom/ sarge main
deb ftp://debian.tu-bs.de/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp://debian.tu-bs.de/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/debian/ testing main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main contrib non-free
#Mplayer
deb ftp://ftp.nerim.net/debian-marillat/ etch main
# stable-backports
deb http://debian.tu-bs.de/debian stable main
# unstable-backports
deb http://debian.tu-bs.de/debian/ unstable main
# nomachine freenx
deb http://www.linux.lk/~anuradha/nx/ ./
---config-details-stop---
Related programms and versions:
apt 0.6.42.1
aptitude 0.2.15.9-7
dselect 1.13.17
Kernel-version:
Linux fileserver 2.6.8 #4 Thu Nov 10 16:51:34 CET 2005 i686 GNU/Linux
Shared-C-Library: Version: 2.3.6-7
Filesystems in use:
/dev/hda5 on / type ext3 (rw,errors=panic)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
tmpfs on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
/dev/hda3 on /boot type ext3 (rw)
/dev/hda9 on /home type ext3 (rw,errors=panic)
/dev/hda8 on /tmp type ext3 (rw,errors=panic)
/dev/hda6 on /usr type ext3 (rw,errors=panic)
/dev/hda7 on /var type ext3 (rw,errors=panic)
/dev/hdd1 on /mnt/www type xfs (rw,noatime)
/mnt/www/www on /var/www type none (rw,bind)
/dev/hdc1 on /mnt/samba type xfs (rw,noatime)
/dev/hdc1 on /daten type xfs (rw)
/dev/hdb1 on /mnt/backup type xfs (rw)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
capifs on /dev/capi type capifs (rw,mode=0666)
/daten/muell/Software on /home/ftp/Software type none (rw,bind)
nfsd on /proc/fs/nfsd type nfsd (rw)
Greetings from Braunschweig, Germany
Sascha Wuestemann
--- End Message ---