Problem in opening and downloading software from software manager

[ImABhi]

hi there,
I have been using mint for about 1 year. I am facing this problem for long. After starting up I able to open software manager for some time . But when I tries to install something it closes without any warning . Then I opened terminal and typed

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mintinstall

hoping for the software manager to work but it didn't , instead showed

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MintInstall: Detected system architecture: 'x86_64'
Installer: System pkgcache too old or not accessible, skipping
Installer: User pkgcache is most recent, using it.

I tried intalling the software pack from the internet and it still didn't work.
please help me with this

[gittiest personITW]

Welcome to the forums.

Go to Menu, type in Software Manager.
See if that opens it. Or Synaptic?

[spamegg]

Hello ImABhi welcome to the Forum.
Please share your system info by entering the command inxi -Fxxxmprz into a Terminal and posting its output here.


My Software Manager works OK, and some of those messages you see are normal. This is what I get:

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 ➜ mintinstall
MintInstall: Detected system architecture: 'x86_64'
No flatpak support, install flatpak and gir1.2-flatpak-1.0 and restart mintinstall to enable it.
Installer: User pkgcache too old, skipping
Installer: User pkgcache too old, skipping
Installer: Generating new pkgcache
Installer: Processing APT packages for cache took 2323.973 ms
Full installer startup took 2707.405 ms
MintInstall: Deleting old screenshots
MintInstall: Downloaded new reviews

I tried intalling the software pack from the internet and it still didn't work.

Can you explain in more detail what you did?
What package did you download, and from where? Links please. Was it a .deb package?
How did you try to install it (was it double-clicking on the file and using GDebi graphical installer?), and what error messages did you get?

It would also be useful to see your

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apt update

[ImABhi]

I tried downloading visual studio code . I dowloaded debian (.deb) package from their official website then right clicked on it and chose GDebi package installer.
G debi package installer just opened the suddenly closed . I didn't recieve any error message.

[ImABhi]

Go to Menu, type in Software Manager.
See if that opens it. Or Synaptic?

It suprisingly opened software manager but when I tried installing it showed package operation failed .
Details :
installArchives() failed:
Extracting templates from packages: 90%%
Extracting templates from packages: 100%%

Extracting templates from packages: 90%%
Extracting templates from packages: 100%%
dpkg: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 2009 package 'brltty':
value for 'Conffiles' field has malformed line '/etc/brltty/Input/ht/ab40.ktb '
Error: Timeout was reached .

[mikeflan]

I have been using mint for about 1 year. I am facing this problem for long.

IMO Timeshift is the way to go to fix this kind of thing. Honestly I don't think I have Timeshifted back in 1.5 years. Or maybe I did once in the last year. But if I need Timeshift I have it going pretty far back. You should consider doing this too, and don't let problems fester. Get on them right away. Timeshift can often fix a serious problem in less than 10 minutes.

[ImABhi]

IMO Timeshift is the way to go to fix this kind of thing.

Thank you for your help. Even though I have been using this software for long I don,t know much about it .
I can see only 5 snapshots in timeshift all taken in the last few days. Since I have this problem for long I think this might not work.

[mikeflan]

Since I have this problem for long I think this might not work.

I think you are right. To allow for it to work in the future I suggest you go into Settings - Schedule tab, and set for monthly snapshot:

[pbear]

Try apt install --reinstall mintupdate. If the command won't run, please report what Terminal says.

What puzzles me is that you're having trouble with Gdebi also. AFAIK, that and Synaptic are independent.

[ImABhi]

To allow for it to work in the future I suggest you go into Settings - Schedule tab, and set for monthly snapshot:

I scheduled it to save snapshot daily, weekly ,and monthly.

schedule

[ImABhi]

Try apt install --reinstall mintupdate. If the command won't run, please report what Terminal says.

It says

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  mintupdate
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 403 not upgraded.
35 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 627 kB of archives.
After this operation, 92.2 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa/main amd64 mintupdate all 5.8.4 [627 kB]
Fetched 627 kB in 2s (331 kB/s)     
dpkg: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 2009 package 'brltty':
 value for 'Conffiles' field has malformed line '/etc/brltty/Input/ht/ab40.ktb '
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)

Please help me fix this problem.

[MiZoG]

Information taken from debianhelp

Either restore 'dpkg.status' from a backup or else recreate it.

Recover package selection data

If /var/lib/dpkg/status becomes broken for any reason, the Debian system loses package selection data and suffers severely. Look for the old /var/lib/dpkg/status file at /var/lib/dpkg/status-old or /var/backups/dpkg.status.*.

Keeping /var/backups/ in a separate partition may be a good idea since this directory contains lots of important system data.

If the old /var/lib/dpkg/status file is not available, you can still recover information from directories in /usr/share/doc/.

# ls /usr/share/doc | \
grep -v [A-Z] | \
grep -v '^texmf$' | \
grep -v '^debian$' | \
awk '{print $1 " install"}' | \
dpkg --set-selections

# dselect --expert # reinstall system, de-select as needed

[ImABhi]

Either restore 'dpkg.status' from a backup or else recreate it.

After veiwing some youtube videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY6WnSGu23o and /viewtopic.php?t=322612 i got the problem fixed .
Now I am able to download software from software manager and by using g debi package installer.
Thank you to every one who helped me.

[pbear]

Either restore 'dpkg.status' from a backup or else recreate it.

Well played. Not something I've run into before. Bookmarked.