Ubuntu
update-manager package

upgrade error in Ubuntu 10.10

Asked by David

Update problem on Ubuntu 10.10

1. After normal startup the messages “software index is broken” “ Not all upgrades can be installed” The partial upgrade does not work & I have tried “sudo apt-get install -f” also “sudo apt-get upgrade” also “dpkg –configure -a” and a few other console commands without any success. The problem appears to be a parse error in file /var/lib/dpkg/updates/0204 “ ~new line in field name. This file is cannot be viewed/edited/deleted or overwritten as I don't have the necessary permissions. Can anybody give me a procedure to correct this problem or do I have to reinstall 10.10 ?

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Solved
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Ubuntu update-manager Edit question
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Solved by:
Eliah Kagan
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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#1

Please follow the instructions as given in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PackageManagerTroubleshootingProcedure with the only exception that in step 5 you should not create a new question, but continue in this question thread that you have already created.

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David (zx37dmc) said : 		#2

Tried that before I posted question ~ Under step 1 when Update manager starts I get "not all updates can be installed" "partial update/close ~ then " software index is broken" the update manager exits !

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Manfred Hampl (m-hampl) said : 		#3

If that is the case leave out step 1 and start with step 2.
In any case the important things are in step 4.

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David (zx37dmc) said : 		#4

Thanks for your help Manfred
Followed the procedure 2 thru 4 to the letter ~ copied the terminal output and my PC hung up with the terminal text output highlighted ~ waited half and hour but PC still hung up, keyboard and mouse have no effect. Powered off, but PC would not boot up again or in recovery mode ~ screen was scrolling with hundreds of error codes ~ tried for 4 hours to boot up or recover ubuntu without success ~ gave up and reinstalled 10.10 from my original ISO disk using format partition option and then using the update manager. Now back in action, although I need to get my wireless network back in action
Many thanks for your help

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Best Eliah Kagan (degeneracypressure) said : 		#5

I'm sorry to hear your problem worsened, but glad it seems to have been solved by a fresh reinstallation. Since your problem may have been due to disk or memory problems (and the way it got worse suggests it was), I recommend that you check your RAM with memtest86+ and your hard disk with smartctl and *also* with badblocks (see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/FaultyHardware). You should also check your hard disk with fsck (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SystemAdministration/Fsck).

Your problem getting wireless working is a separate one, so you will have best luck marking this question as Solved and opening a new question to deal with that (https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-nettool/+addquestion).

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David (zx37dmc) said : 		#6

Thanks Eliah Kagan, that solved my question.