[Solved] Upgrade problem: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[johnerskine]

I'm having problems with making changes with apt-get, aptitude, synaptic, and adept

Having run

sudo dpkg -audit

I get

The following packages are in a mess due to serious problems during
installation. They must be reinstalled for them (and any packages
that depend on them) to function properly:
linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic Linux kernel image for version 2.6.24 on x86/x86

I then run

sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic

and get

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
libaccess-bridge-java linux-headers-2.6.24-18-generic libdb4.5 linux-headers-2.6.24-18
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
Suggested packages:
linux-doc-2.6.24 linux-source-2.6.24
The following packages will be upgraded:
linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 62 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/18.4MB of archives.
After this operation, 4096B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb (--unpack):
files list file for package `linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic' is missing final newline
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)


Any ideas how I solve this one?

[Snowhog]

Re: Upgrade problem: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

What is returned when you type (in a console):

aptitude why linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic

[johnerskine]

Re: Upgrade problem: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Thanks, ran that. It returns

The package "linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic" is manually installed.

[Rog131]

Re: Upgrade problem: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Maybe, searching with the "files list file for package missing final newline" =>


> Bug 108189: files list file for package `*' is missing final newline

APt-get, adept, and the restricted drivers manager might halt installing packages when one or more of the files in: /var/lib/dpkg/info/ is corrupt.
...

Since all these files seem to contain only a string of @^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^@^
it seems they are redundant, and i ventured on moving them from the folder, this solved the problem...

> apt-get dpkg error: files list file ... missing final newline

...the file /var/lib/dpkg/info/smbfs.list was corrupted, it was all binary crap. Dunno how this could happen, but it was. So justin advised me to delete the file (actually, I mv'd it) - and, voila, apt warned me that the files list could not be found for smbfs, but at least I could apt-get remove smbfs --purge and install it again (apt-get install smbfs) - that took the biscuit!...

> list file for package missing final newline

...
If you're new to Debian/Ubuntu and are still finding your
way around, here you go:

1. The package list files are in /var/lib/dpkg/info

In my case /var/lib/dpkg/info/libgtk1.2.list was corrupted
(its contents were binary cruft).

So the best way to go about this is to

2. Manually reinstall the affected package

# move the info dir containing corrupted data out of the
# way, and create a new 'info' dir
cd /var/lib/dpkg
sudo mv info info.bak
sudo mkdir info

# reinstall the affected package, in my case this was
sudo apt-get --reinstall install libgtk1.2

# this will print lots of warnings about missing list
# files for the dependencies, which is obvious.
# now move the newly generated files in 'info/' to the
# 'info.bak/' directory containing info for all packages
# this will replace the information for the package
# we just installed
sudo mv info/* info.bak/

# and now get things back to where they were
sudo rm -rf info
sudo mv info.bak info
...

[johnerskine]

Re: Upgrade problem: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I've tried a number of things following these suggestions

Ran ls /var/lib/dpkg

Got

alternatives cmethopt info parts status updates
available diversions lock statoverride status-old
available-old diversions-old methods statoverride-old triggers


Then I ran

ls /var/cache/apt/archives/

Got a full list of the archives, which included

linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb

Moved this using

sudo mv /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb

to a text file, which gives a long binary file I can't understand

Ran

sudo apt-get update

followed by

sudo apt-get install

this halted at the same old error message

Reading database ... dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb (--unpack):
files list file for package `linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic' is missing final newline
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb
Processing was halted because there were too many errors.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1

Tried

sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb

then

sudo aptitude

this prompted me with the message that

E: I wasn't able to locate the file for the linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic package. This might mean you might have to manually fix this package.

E: Internal error. Couldn't generate list of packages to download.

I've tried running both Synaptic as well, and it also keeps returning the error message

E: /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb: files list file for package `linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic' is missing final newline

Do I need to get into this file and change something. Running

ls -ail /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb

Gives me

770061 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 18378290 2008-07-15 17:06 /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb


But running

cat /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-2.6.24-19-generic_2.6.24-19.36_i386.deb

just gives me pages of binary

Any ideas?

[johnerskine]

[Solved]: Upgrade problem: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Eventually I reached a solution to this problem.

See here

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/41235

Many thanks to all who have helped - other users are the reason I use Linux.