Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

internal gzip read error

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I have a Dell Optiplex 755 Core 2 Duo that I made a fresh install of 12.04. There is no Winows OS on the machine. It has been running mostly fine for over a week. I do keep getting system crashes due to an xserver-xorg-intel conflict, but at least I know the source of that. Recently, running upgrade && update I keep getting a conflict, seemingly with just one update, the most recent linux-libc-dev. Here's what I get: jay@jay-jay:/$ sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get update Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following packages will be upgraded: linux-libc-dev 1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0 B/828 kB of archives. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y (Reading database ... 208582 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace linux-libc-dev 3.2.0-23.36 (using .../linux-libc-dev_3.2.0-24.37_i386.deb) ... Unpacking replacement linux-libc-dev ... dpkg-deb (subprocess): data: internal gzip read error: ': data error' dpkg-deb: error: subprocess returned error exit status 2 dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-libc-dev_3.2.0-24.37_i386.deb (--unpack): subprocess dpkg-deb --fsys-tarfile returned error exit status 2 No apport report written because the error message indicates an issue on the local system Errors were encountered while processing: /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-libc-dev_3.2.0-24.37_i386.deb E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) I have searched AskUbuntu, have found similar questions and have tried the accepted answers where I thought they may have been of use. At this point, I am stalled. dpkg  gzip share improve this question asked  May 17 '12 at 12:57 beelzbubba 8 3

1 Answer

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Obviously there is something wrong between dpkg-deb (a program, which is part of the debian package management used by apt-get) and tar (which is packing/unpacking files from/into single archives). Now the dpkg-deb is calling tar with an unsopported option, so somehow there is a version mismatch between those programs. You can run this, to try solve this issue: `aptitude clean` or `apt-get clean` if didn't solve, try this trick: Rename /bin/tar to /bin/tar.original: mv /bin/tar /bin/tar.original Then wrote simple script into /bin/tar file: #!/bin/bash tar.original xf - chmod a+x /bin/tar The last step is reinstallation of broken packages: apt-get install --reinstall dpkg apt-get install --reinstall tar share improve this answer edited May 17 '12 at 13:12 answered  May 17 '12 at 13:00 Subv3rsion 1,988 5 13

'apt-get clean' worked! Simple. Thank you so much. I ran upgrade && update after and it was a complete success. –  beelzbubba  May 18 '12 at 14:32   if worked, vote and close your question. Thanks. –  Subv3rsion  May 18 '12 at 14:41   OK, I closed it. Tried to vote "up" but I don't have enough 'reputation' yet! –  beelzbubba  May 18 '12 at 14:50