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sudo dpkg error - blank line in value of field 'Maintainer'

rated 0 times [ 2] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 2895 / 3 Years ago, wed, august 4, 2021, 10:27:22

I am running on Ubuntu 12.04 LTS and am trying to install NX. When using a sudo dpkg command for the plugin (nxplugin_3.5.0-6_i386.deb) I get an error.

I have tried a number of things. Other packages seemed to work but not this one. I have looked around quite a bit and it sounds like it might have something to do with the /var/lib/dpkg/status file but all I see in Line 6 of that is:

Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <[email protected]>

Here is the error:

sudo dpkg -i nxplugin_3.5.0-6_i386.deb

dpkg: error processing nxplugin_3.5.0-6_i386.deb (--install):

 parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/control' near line 6 package 'nxplugin':

 blank line in value of field 'Maintainer'

Errors were encountered while processing:

 nxplugin_3.5.0-6_i386.deb

Any help is appreciated. Thanks,

Jeff

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raacket

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1 Year ago

answered 3 Years ago njuash · Accepted Answer

You can easily edit the Control file to work around this. Open gedit or nano and type or paste:

#!/bin/bash



if [[ -z "$1" ]]; then

  echo "Syntax: $0 debfile"

  exit 1

fi



DEBFILE="$1"

TMPDIR=`mktemp -d /tmp/deb.XXXXXXXXXX` || exit 1

OUTPUT=`basename "$DEBFILE" .deb`.modfied.deb



if [[ -e "$OUTPUT" ]]; then

  echo "$OUTPUT exists."

  rm -r "$TMPDIR"

  exit 1

fi



dpkg-deb -x "$DEBFILE" "$TMPDIR"

dpkg-deb --control "$DEBFILE" "$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN



if [[ ! -e "$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN/control ]]; then

  echo DEBIAN/control not found.



  rm -r "$TMPDIR"

  exit 1

fi



CONTROL="$TMPDIR"/DEBIAN/control



MOD=`stat -c "%y" "$CONTROL"`

vi "$CONTROL"



if [[ "$MOD" == `stat -c "%y" "$CONTROL"` ]]; then

  echo Not modfied.

else

  echo Building new deb...

  dpkg -b "$TMPDIR" "$OUTPUT"

fi



rm -r "$TMPDIR"

Same the file as debedit.sh, and make it executable with chmod +x debedit.sh.

Then, run debedit.sh nxplugin_3.5.0-6_i386.deb for the file, and edit the correct line (or add it). Save, and then run sudo dpkg -i nxplugin_3.5.0-6_i386.deb.modified.deb (the name may differ a bit), and enjoy!

Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=636724