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

[D. Wegener]

The package is provided by Lexmark for their printers.  It is licensed
by them and I'm not sure I'm allowed to post it here.  The version I had
installed no longer appears to be available on their support site.

I could probably send the file to you directly, but I don't think I'm
allowed to post it on the site.


Their installation package is shipped an a self extracting shell script with the .deb packaged inside.  Attempting to re-install the package now produces the following error:

dpkg: error processing lexmark-inkjet-09-driver-1.5-1.i386.deb (--install):
 parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/control' near line 9 package 'lexmark-inkjet-09-driver':
 blank line in value of field 'Description'
Errors were encountered while processing:
 lexmark-inkjet-09-driver-1.5-1.i386.deb

Running dpkg --info on the .deb produces the following:

 Package: lexmark-inkjet-09-driver
 Version: 1.5-1
 Section: non-free
 Priority: optional
 Architecture: i386
 Installed-Size: 
 Maintainer: build <build at linux>
 Description:
  Lexmark Series Drivers Package
  
  This package contains the Lexmark Series Drivers. This is
  a copyrighted package, please refer to the copyright notice
  for details about using this product.

The blank line appears after the first line of the Description.

Here is how the packages entry appears in the status file prior to the
upgrade:

Package: lexmark-inkjet-09-driver
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: non-free
Maintainer: build <build at linux>
Architecture: i386
Version: 1.5-1
Description: 
 Lexmark Series Drivers Package
 
 This package contains the Lexmark Series Drivers. This is
 a copyrighted package, please refer to the copyright notice
 for details about using this product.

Again the blank line appears in the description.

Editing the file doesn't show any other characters on the line (no tabs,
spaces, etc)  It appears to be just a new line.

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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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