I ran into the same problem, and I'm NOT doing a dist-upgrade, just a routine update of packages.
I'm getting the blank line error for the package XMind. I solved the problem by deleting the offending lines and applying the package updates. I agree that using an empty line as a record separator seems easy to run afoul of, so at a minimum the regex / parser of the file should be more capable at identifying a record dpkg-query: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 30690 package 'xmind': blank line in value of field 'Description' Extracting templates from packages: 100% Preconfiguring packages ... dpkg: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 30690 package 'xmind': blank line in value of field 'Description' E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2) A package failed to install. Trying to recover: dpkg: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 30690 package 'xmind': blank line in value of field 'Description' Using vi, I editted /var/lib/dpkg/status and /var/lib/dpkg/available to delete the offending blank line, marked for illustration purposes below with the text [[ ***DELETE ME ..... I AM A BLANK LINE IN THE DESCRIPTION*** ]] Package: xmind Priority: optional Section: multiverse/text Installed-Size: 43096 Maintainer: xmind <[email protected]> Architecture: i386 Version: 3.0.3.200904291819 Depends: libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.8.0), openjdk-6-jre | sun-java5-jre | sun-java6-jre Size: 37004904 Description: XMind - Brainstorming and Mind Mapping XMind, is an open source brainstorming and mind mapping software tool developed by XMind Ltd. It helps people to capture ideas, organize to various charts, and share them for collaboration. Supporting mind maps, fishbone diagrams, tree diagrams, org-charts, logic charts, and even spreadsheets. Often used for knowledge management, meeting minutes, task management, and GTD. XMind is compatible with Freemind/Mindmanager. [[ ***DELETE ME ..... I AM A BLANK LINE IN THE DESCRIPTION*** ]] XMind is dual licensed under 2 open source licenses: the Eclipse Public License v1.0 (EPL) and the GNU Lesser General Public License v3 (LGPL). [[*** THIS IS AN EXPECTED BLANK LINE BETWEEN PACKAGES ***]] Package: libcap2-bin -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/916799 Title: Blank line in previously installed packagedescription causes 12.04 upgrade failure To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/dpkg/+bug/916799/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
