Package problem with firefox in xubuntu

July 29, 2009 10:47 AM

Firefox has died on me after an update in xubuntu, help!

I used the update manager earlier to update firefox (and a variety of other things) but received the following error message and consequently firefox will not work.

E: /var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-3.0_3.0.12+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.10.1_i386.deb: short read in buffer_copy (backend dpkg-deb during `./usr/lib/firefox-3.0.12/components/libbrowsercomps.so')

I tried reinstalling through synaptic, which didn't work. Then completely removed it, installed it fresh. Still no joy. The "Broken" section of synaptic now has firefox, and firefox-3.0-branding in it.

Anyone know how can I get firefox working again? And less importantly, what went wrong?

And if it's relevant I'm running xubuntu on an Acer Aspire One. I am also a total linux noob.

posted by knapah to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: Sounds like the .deb you downloaded wasn't fully downloaded. Uninstall Firefox and then do this in the console:

sudo apt-get clean

Then install Firefox again.
posted by chrisroberts at 11:00 AM on July 29, 2009

This bug report seems related. Try entering the following line in the Terminal:

sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-3.0_3.0.12+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.10.1_i386.deb

... and then try to reinstall.
posted by aheckler at 11:00 AM on July 29, 2009

Yah, "sudo apt-get clean", "sudo apt-get install --reinstall firefox-3.0".

Did the updater die in some way? Maybe you have a bad block on your disk, too. If a bit got flipped in the iron-oxide, and it thinks the package file is 41237896280 bytes instead of 12348976, then you might get an error like that.
posted by cmiller at 11:09 AM on July 29, 2009

Response by poster: sudo apt-get clean worked. cheers guys.
posted by knapah at 11:50 AM on July 29, 2009