Update manager & Synaptic problems...

[sktsee]

On Thu, 2007-06-21 at 11:36 -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're
reporting it sounds like dpkg is parsing /var/lib/dpkg/diversions and is
hiccup'ing on a blank line or some incorrect character that might have
crept into the file. Maybe you had a failed install, or segfault during
an install/update that could have corrupted the file? Anyway, try
moving /var/lib/dpkg/diversions to your home dir (as a backup) and then
copy /var/lib/dpkg/diversions-old to /var/lib/dpkg/diversions. The -old
copy is the previous version of the diversions file before its updated
during a package install so it might not have the corruption in it (if
that's what the problem is). If you get the same error after copying the
-old file over, the you may need to manually edit the file to see if
there are any blank lines or non-ascii characters present.

Also check /var/log/dpkg.log to see if there any specific messages
that'll help pinpoint the problem if the solutions listed above don't
work.

-- 
sktsee