Update manager & Synaptic problems...

[sktsee]

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:36:12 -0500, Larry Shields wrote:

> I have been having a problem in installing any software either by the 
> update manager & synaptic...After the updates have finished, or packages 
> installed via synaptic, I am getting this error message below...
> 
> Software updates
> Extracting templates from packages: 100%
> dpkg: fgets gave an empty string from diversions (i)
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
> A package failed to install.
> 
> Trying to recover.
> 
> Has anyone had this problem, if so, could you please explain to me the 
> fix for it...
> 
> Thanks for any help on this matter...
> 
> Larry
>

I haven't had this problem, but based on the error message you are
reporting, it sounds like there is a blank line or maybe even a null string
in the /var/lib/dpkg/diversions file that is causing dpkg to hiccup. As a
quick fix, you could try moving the diversions file to a safe place and
then copy /var/lib/dpkg/diversions-old to /var/lib/dpkg/diversions. 

You might also take a look at /var/log/dpkg.log to see if there are any
messages which can help pinpoint the problem if the solution above
doesn't work.

-- 
sktsee