cannot get updates from manager or add and remove

[wfreebird23]

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
E: _cache->open() failed, please report.Version7.1 This is the error I get when trying to update. I have tried from terminal to configure a, but doesn't work. I don't know the command.It won't allow me to do anything for dpkg.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Sat Mar 1 14:58:55 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 7.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/gnome-terminal
Package: gnome-terminal 2.18.2-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcCmdline: gnome-terminal
ProcCwd: /home/johnda
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-terminal
Uname: Linux johnda-desktop 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Feb 12 07:42:25 UTC 2008 i686 GNU/Linux

[Dereck Wonnacott (dereck)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please answer these questions:

* Is this reproducible?
* If so, what specific steps should we take to recreate this bug?

This will help us to find and resolve the problem.

[James Thorrold (jthorrold)]

Both Update Manager and Add/Remove... crash for me. when using Add/Remove... this happens when I attempt to install a program. Update Manager crashed when I click on the 'Check' command button.

[James Thorrold (jthorrold)]

It seems that the two programs fail to ask the user to enter their password to complete a task that requires it, the 'Starting Administrative Application' program bar is visible but fails to display anything.