dpkg-statoverrides: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
syntax error: unknown group 'root' in statoverride file
This is a serious error as it is preventing security related updates from being installed, and the average user should simply NOT have this sort of thing to deal with.
Today I found I can't install the updates on my 10.04 system and the error given was:
dpkg: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
syntax error: unknown group 'root' in statoverride file
But this is not included in the /var/log/* files and you can't copy & paste from the update manager!
The contents of my file are:
root mlocate 2755 /usr/bin/mlocate
root root 4755 /sbin/unix_chkpwd
hplip root 755 /var/run/hplip
I have seen a thread about hplib and a similar error message (http:// ubuntuforums. org/showthread. php?t=186487) from 2006 but why is it still happening 4 years later!?
The suggestion there is to remove by the command:
dpkg-statoverride --remove /var/run/hplip
But guess what? It gives the same error message:
dpkg-statoverrides: unrecoverable fatal error, aborting:
syntax error: unknown group 'root' in statoverride file
This is a serious error as it is preventing security related updates from being installed, and the average user should simply NOT have this sort of thing to deal with.