dpkg is messing up for me. Help!
 

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

Thats the error i get. I tried all that dpkg --configure -a and i put sudo in front of it but it still won't work. Help.

What distro are you running?

And what were you doing that caused the issue?

You can try parsing the output of dpkg --get-selections and see if something is listed as "broken" or "partially installed".

I have ubuntu 8.1

I got this for dpkg selections.

izese@izese-desktop:~$ dpkg --get-selections
dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/updates/0001' near line 1:
newline in field name `padding'

Try using "sudo dpkg --get-selections".

And what were you doing when things went bad?

I tried to update some programs.

got this.

izese@izese-desktop:~$ sudo dpkg --get-selections
dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/updates/0001' near line 1:
newline in field name `padding'
izese@izese-desktop:~$

What is the output of df -h.

And what is the output of ls -al /var/lib/dpkg/updates?

I googled around and found a possible solution for you. You can try deleting the update that has been downloaded, then run dpkg. So in order you can try (at your own risk, of course) Then when it was working again, I would run sudo aptitude update.

I had a similar problem recently on a live CD when I tried to do an apt-get dist-upgrade, but ran out of space.

It looked like the numbered file in /var/lib/dpkg/updates/ was truncated due to a lack of disk space, and this prevented apt-get or dpkg from working.

I was able to clear the problem by removing this file, then running I got another error when I ran out of disk space again, but was finally able to run apt-get to remove some large packages that I'd downloaded, and it seemed to work from there.

After the first part, it shows a bunch of selections. Which one should i pick?

How do i delete/var/lib/dpkg/updates/?

izese@izese-desktop:~$ ls -al /var/lib/dpkg/updates
total 76
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-01-09 17:02 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 2008-12-17 18:57 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1144 2008-12-17 18:57 0000
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1143 2008-12-17 18:57 0002
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1143 2008-12-17 18:57 0003
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1137 2008-12-17 18:57 0004
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1130 2008-12-17 18:57 0005
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1085 2008-12-17 18:57 0006
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1078 2008-12-17 18:57 0007
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1084 2008-12-17 18:57 0008
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1084 2008-12-17 18:57 0009
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1078 2008-12-17 18:57 0010
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1071 2008-12-17 18:57 0011
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1036 2008-12-17 18:57 0012
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1029 2008-12-17 18:57 0013
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1035 2008-12-17 18:57 0014
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1035 2008-12-17 18:57 0015
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1029 2008-12-17 18:57 0016
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1022 2008-12-17 18:57 tmp.i


izese@izese-desktop:~$ df -h.
df: invalid option -- '.'
Try `df --help' for more information.
izese@izese-desktop:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 118G 23G 90G 21% /
tmpfs 441M 0 441M 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 441M 216K 441M 1% /var/run
varlock 441M 0 441M 0% /var/lock
udev 441M 2.7M 439M 1% /dev
tmpfs 441M 692K 441M 1% /dev/shm
lrm 441M 2.0M 439M 1% /lib/modules/2.6.27-7-generic/volatile

help

Looks like you ran the first command and removed 0001. Did you then run dpkg --reconfigure -a?

No should i?

Yes.

izese@izese-desktop:~$ dpkg --reconfigure -a
dpkg: unknown option --reconfigure

Type dpkg --help for help about installing and deinstalling packages[*];
Use `dselect' or `aptitude' for user-friendly package management;
Type dpkg -Dhelp for a list of dpkg debug flag values;
Type dpkg --force-help for a list of forcing options;
Type dpkg-deb --help for help about manipulating *.deb files;
Type dpkg --license for copyright license and lack of warranty (GNU GPL)[*].

Options marked[*] produce a lot of output - pipe it through `less' or `more' !

What should i do now?

Sorry, my fault. I meant dpkg --configure -a

i got.

izese@izese-desktop:~$ dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: requested operation requires superuser privilege
izese@izese-desktop:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/updates/0002' near line 1:
field name `
izese@izese-desktop:~$

Okay, so now sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/updates/0002 and then try the dpkg command again.

Basically, what I think happened was one of the updates got borked. So just keep deleting them one by one until the dpkg command works correctly.

izese@izese-desktop:~$ sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/updates/0002
rm: cannot remove `/var/lib/dpkg/updates/0002': No such file or directory
izese@izese-desktop:~$ sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/updates/0002

It must be deleted so how can i delete the others or is there an alternative to Dpkg?

What is the output of ls -al /var/lib/dpkg/updates?

dpkg is the guts of the package management system. You won't be able to install any software until you resolve this situation.

Did you try running sudo dpkg --configure -a again?

I fixed it for me
 

My fix was deleting some more:
Then I did reconfigure -a and it all worked...