apt-get status file problem

[Paul McNett]

Hi, back in May I upgraded my Warty box to a Hoary box. I did this by 
changing all references from "warty" to "hoary" in /etc/apt/sources.list 
and doing an 'apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade'. My current 
sources.list looks like:

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary main restricted

deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary universe

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu hoary-security main restricted

This worked great and the system has been stable. It is a server with no 
xwindows installed. In late July I issued 'apt-get update;apt-get 
upgrade' with no issues. Today I decided to install any updates but upon 
issuing 'apt-get update' I received the following:

root at fryer:/var/lib/dpkg # apt-get update
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com hoary Release.gpg [189B]
Get:2 http://security.ubuntu.com hoary-security Release.gpg [189B]
Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com hoary Release
Get:3 http://security.ubuntu.com hoary-security Release [16.9kB]
Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com hoary/main Packages
Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com hoary/restricted Packages
Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com hoary/main Sources
Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com hoary/restricted Sources
Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com hoary/universe Packages
Hit http://archive.ubuntu.com hoary/universe Sources
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com hoary-security/main Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com hoary-security/restricted Packages
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com hoary-security/main Sources
Hit http://security.ubuntu.com hoary-security/restricted Sources
Fetched 17.0kB in 2s (8475B/s)
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/dpkg/status (1)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

Searching the web I found suggestions to swap in the sources-old file. I 
did that, no go. I also found suggestions to swap in backups from 
/var/backups/dpkg.status.*. I tried the latest one without success but 
am afraid to try any of the others because they are much smaller in size 
- should I try the one from 5/27?

Here are the backups I have to choose from:

root at fryer:/var/lib/dpkg # ll /var/backups/dpkg.status.*
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 310138 2005-07-24 13:03 /var/backups/dpkg.status.0
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  90851 2005-05-27 11:15 
/var/backups/dpkg.status.1.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  90849 2005-05-26 14:53 
/var/backups/dpkg.status.2.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  90836 2005-05-17 12:44 
/var/backups/dpkg.status.3.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  90843 2005-05-07 11:32 
/var/backups/dpkg.status.4.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  90785 2005-05-03 07:40 
/var/backups/dpkg.status.5.gz
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  90336 2005-05-01 19:01 
/var/backups/dpkg.status.6.gz

I really don't want to hose this system as it is running my mailserver 
(Kerio, installed from an RPM with alien and dpkg -i), web server, 
Subversion server, and MySQL server.

Is there at least a way to figure out which line in status is failing to 
parse? Any input on what I should do?

-- 
Paul McNett
http://paulmcnett.com
http://dabodev.com