[Bug 916799] [NEW] Blank line in previously installed packagedescription causes 12.04 upgrade failurt

[Raphaël Hertzog]

Hello,

On Sun, 15 Jan 2012, D. Wegener wrote:
> While attempting to upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04 the version of dpkg used
> by Ubuntu was upgraded.  The new version was unable to parse my
> /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available files.  Under 11.10, I
> had installed a package from Lexmark for a printer driver that had a
> blank line in the package description field.  The old version of dpkg
> was apparently able to parse the file with the blank line.  However,
> when the new version encountered the files.  any further package updates
> failed and the update process proceeded to the cleanup/reboot phase.

Can you provide this package ?

It seems weird because I don't think that dpkg ever allowed a blank line
in the description field. A blank line means that it will begin to parse a
new entry and as such it will complain because the new entry does not
begin with a field.

Cheers,
-- 
Raphaël Hertzog ◈ Debian Developer

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/916799

Title:
  Blank line in previously installed packagedescription causes 12.04
  upgrade failurt

Status in “dpkg” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  While attempting to upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04 the version of dpkg
  used by Ubuntu was upgraded.  The new version was unable to parse my
  /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available files.  Under 11.10,
  I had installed a package from Lexmark for a printer driver that had a
  blank line in the package description field.  The old version of dpkg
  was apparently able to parse the file with the blank line.  However,
  when the new version encountered the files.  any further package
  updates failed and the update process proceeded to the cleanup/reboot
  phase.

  My system was usable following the reboot, and I was able to find the
  blank lines and manually edit them to allow dpkg to start working
  again.  There were some broken packages as a result of the failed
  upgrade.  I was able to fix them using apt-get install -f.  I was then
  able to complete the upgrade with an apt-get dist-upgrade.

  There may need to be some checks added to the upgrade procedure to
  prevent upgrade failures when a package description has a blank line.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
  Package: dpkg 1.16.1.2ubuntu5
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-8.15-generic 3.2.0
  Uname: Linux 3.2.0-8-generic i686
  ApportVersion: 1.90-0ubuntu2
  Architecture: i386
  CheckboxSubmission: 21a3f7508cdc22a53dbe8d10fbb1ff75
  CheckboxSystem: 9c26adf6eed2f681ba41f94dd24c07e4
  Date: Sun Jan 15 08:53:36 2012
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu-Netbook 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta i386 (20100318)
  SourcePackage: dpkg
  UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-01-15 (0 days ago)

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