Comment 1 for bug 147963

Same here, but solved.

I started hald manually:

   $ sudo /usr/sbin/hald --daemon=no --verbose=yes

and got this error:

    *** [DIE] mmap_cache.c:di_rules_init():68 : Unable to open cache /var/cache/hald/fdi-cache

Looking at the directory /var/cache/hald/ I found a backup copy of fd-cache ( I guess it was a backup as the filename was fd-cache~ ) and renamed it to fd-cache (the file hald is looking for):

    $ sudo mv /var/cache/hald/fd-cache~ /var/cache/hald/fd-cache

Alternatively regenerating the cache works too:

   $ sudo /usr/lib/hal/hald-generate-fdi-cache
   15:00:38.314 [I] create_cache.c:611: Loading rules
   15:01:20.211 [I] create_cache.c:677: preprobe: offset=00000014, size=347312
   15:01:20.212 [I] create_cache.c:679: information: offset=00054cc4, size=117484
   15:01:20.212 [I] create_cache.c:681: policy: offset=000717b0, size=27916
   15:01:20.212 [I] create_cache.c:683: Generating rules done (occupying 492732 bytes)

Now hald service starts correctly:

   $ sudo /etc/init.d/hal restart
   * Restarting Hardware abstraction layer hald [ OK ]