dpkg: serious warning: file list file for package 'package' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed - can't install any packages

[Andrew Farris]

On Tue, 2009-08-11 at 10:45 -0400, Ryan Pugatch wrote:
> 
> Florian Diesch wrote:
> > Ryan Pugatch <rpug at tripadvisor.com> writes:
> > 
> >> Interesting issue.. my machine (thinkpad t61) has had an issue where the 
> >> file system would randomly become read only.  
> > 
> > That usually caused by a file system error.
> > Often things like that mean your disc is about to die.
> > 
> >> I think it has something to do with the machine going in to standby..
> >> it seems to happen shortly after waking up.  Anyway, usually after a
> >> few times of this happening I have to run fsck and then everything is
> >> back to normal.  Unfortunately, this time, it appears something was
> >> really hosed and there were a lot of unattached inodes when I ran
> >> fsck.  Everything seems fine, though, except for the part where I
> >> can't install anything with apt.  It seems that dpkg thinks that none
> >> of my packages are installed.
> >>
> >> See: http://paste.ubuntu.com/251393/
> > 
> > That looks quite bad. A lot of the *.list files in /var/lib/dpkg/info/
> > are missing so the package manager doesn't know anymore which files
> > belong to which package. 
> > 
> > Most likely there are other files missing or damaged, too.
> > 
> > 
> >> Not really sure what to do at this point.  It would be nice to make it 
> >> work again, otherwise I'll have to reload the machine which I'd like to 
> >> avoid doing.
> > 
> > I'd reinstall the system, if possible on a new disc (replacing the disc
> > is quite simple on a Thinkpad).
> > 
> > 
> >    Florian
> 
> Thanks for your advice.  If I need to reinstall, I had planned on using 
> a new disk just in case.  But I don't think that the disk is bad.  The 
> FS would only go read only when I'm working mobile and having put the 
> machine in standby.  Something definitely would get corrupted when it 
> would happen.  Is there no magic way to regenerate the *.list files? 
> Heh, I'm more of a yum/rpm guy so I'm not as knowledgeable about apt/dpkg.
> 
> -- 
> Ryan Pugatch
> Systems Administrator, TripAdvisor
> 

Have you tried doing a "sudo apt-get update"?  As far as I know, that
should update the list files.  If that doesnt work, mayve moving the
entire list directory then trying a "sudo apt-get update" might help as
well.

Just a thought...hope it's helpful!

-- 
Andrew
_____________________________
Registered Linux User: 473690
Registered Ubuntu User: 22747