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 14:34 -0400, Ryan Pugatch wrote:
> 
> Andrew Farris wrote:
> 
> >>
> > 
> > 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!
> > 
> 
> Yeah, that didn't work.  That was one of the first things I tried.
> 
> But now that you mention it.. the list directory was missing.  I 
> recreated it.
> 
> The problem now is the */list files are missing.
> 
> Also there are other dirs missing from /var/lib/dpkg such as 
> /var/lib/dpkg/alternatives
> 
> Is there a way to just recreate everything that should be in /var/lib/dpkg?

Perhaps. I know you could at least get parts of it back anyway... was
there anything at all in the /var/lib/dpkg/ folder? if there was, check
for files named *-old... (i.e. status-old, available-old, etc...) try
replacing the current files (i.e. the status, available, etc.) with the
*-old files, and see if that helps. 

Theres also supposed to be backups of some of these files
in /var/backups that you could check for.

finally... have you checked /lost+found/ for any of these missing
files/directories? It was at least my understanding(somebody correct me
if i'm wrong) that if a file/folder became orphaned (i.e. due to a
corrupted inode?) that the readable contents of the orphaned data would
be moved to /lost+found/...maybe the missing dirs/files might be in
there?


-- 
Andrew
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