package update-manager 1:0.87.30 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: SystemError in cache.commit(): E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

[linas]

This bug report was autogenerated during dist-upgrade from
hardy to intrepid. Unclear to me what actually went wrong.

ProblemType: Package
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Feb 5 20:42:04 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ErrorMessage: ErrorMessage: SystemError in cache.commit(): E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Package: update-manager 1:0.87.30
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: update-manager
Title: package update-manager 1:0.87.30 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: SystemError in cache.commit(): E:Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Uname: Linux 2.6.26ath64 x86_64

[linas (linasvepstas)]

Root cause of failed dist-upgrade was that the file

/var/lib/dpkg/info/libedataserver1.2-4.postrm

contained garbage and was corrupted. Clearing out this file, together with a bunch of 'apt-get -f install' and 'dpkg --configure -a' eventually got things back on track and got the upgrade completed.

It was highly non-obvious to discover that the above was the problem, it would be nice if apt/dpkg could have somehow automatically handled this, or zeroed in on this as the root cause.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

The first error from the log is:

Setting up x-ttcidfont-conf (27) ...
Use of uninitialized value in exists at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Template.pm lin
e 80, <GEN1> line 3.
Use of uninitialized value in exists at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Cache.
pm line 39, <GEN1> line 3.
Can't call method "i18n" on an undefined value at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Eleme
nt/Noninteractive/Select.pm line 13, <GEN1> line 3.
dpkg: error processing x-ttcidfont-conf (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 9