Ubuntu 14.04 will not update/remove or install any packages

Question

I first noticed this problem when my update manager kept failing to install updates sudo apt-get update runs without returning any errors, when i run:

sudo apt-get install upgrade

i get the following error:

dpkg: malloc.c:2372: sysmalloc: Assertion `(old_top == (((mbinptr) (((char *) &((av)->bins[((1) - 1) * 2])) - __builtin_offsetof (struct malloc_chunk, fd)))) && old_size == 0) || ((unsigned long) (old_size) >= (unsigned long)((((__builtin_offsetof (struct malloc_chunk, fd_nextsize))+((2 *(sizeof(size_t))) - 1)) & ~((2 *(sizeof(size_t))) - 1))) && ((old_top)->size & 0x1) && ((unsigned long) old_end & pagemask) == 0)' failed.

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg exited unexpectedly

And probably unrealated to this problem when i first boot up my computer (same laptop as above error) the 'T' and 'Y' keys and a few other keys do not work, originally thought it was a problem with the keyboard itself but all keys start working normally after a few mins my guess is a software problem?

I tried doing some searching around but could not find a solution to either problem, i am hoping someone will be able to help

Answer 1

Try putting the machine in recovery mode (basically yank power twice), then pick advanced options, recovery mode, and try the dpkg option. Worth a try.

Answer 2

The right command is

sudo apt-get upgrade

You should remove the install and it will work.

Answer 3

I was getting the very same error and I managed to find a solution.

As you can probably infer from the error message, this is an issue with dpkg. It turns out, in my case, there was a corrupted file in /var/lib/dpkg/info that caused dpkg to end in such a dramatical way. The easiest and less dangerous solution is to reinstall the system, but if this is too much pain you may try to remove the corrupted file by rebuilding the info.

First create a backup.

cd /var/lib/dpkg
mv info info.bak

Now you may regenerate the info by reinstalling every package in the system. (Warning: this is going to take a while!)

for i in $(dpkg -l|awk '/^ii/ {print $2}')
do
    apt-get --reinstall -y install $i
done

Hopefully you are all set!

(this last step is from https://serverfault.com/questions/484933/debian-removed-var-lib-dpkg-info-is-there-a-way-to-save-the-system)