Alan Schwartz: > Package: upgrade-reports > Version: 9 > Severity: grave > > Followed the Debian 9 release notes to upgrade a jessie i386 (686) machine > to stretch. No apt sources except official debian ones. Following the apt-get > dist-upgrade step, attempts to use apt-get, apt-cache, aptitude > produce the following error: > > # apt-get update > Hit:1 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch-updates InRelease > Ign:2 http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch InRelease > Get:3 http://security.debian.org stretch/updates InRelease [62.9 kB] > Hit:4 http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch Release > Fetched 62.9 kB in 1s (38.2 kB/s) > Reading package lists... Error! > E: flAbsPath on /var/lib/dpkg/status failed - realpath (22: Invalid > argument) > E: Could not open file - open (2: No such file or directory) > E: Problem opening > E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened. > > > Error persists after reboot of the system. > > [...]
Hi, Sorry to hear you had issues with the upgrade. The problem you describe appears to be related to the release notes item [5.3.2] (5.3.2.1 actually, but I cannot find the direct link to that). The exact case with /var/lib/dpkg/status is not mentioned, but it could be that there are some permissions on your system that forbit "_apt" to access /var/lib/dpkg/status. * Could you please try to login in as the _apt user and check that it can read /var/lib/dpkg/status? - If it fails, please attempt to figure out where the permission fails (e.g. [dir-test]) * If you have any policy framework enabled (SELinux or AppArmor), please check if any of these are forbidding the access. Thanks, ~Niels [5.3.2]: https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/amd64/release-notes/ch-information.en.html#apt-issues [dir-test]: Example: ls -ld / /var /var/lib /var/lib/dpkg /var/lib/dpkg/status