Raspberry Pi OS • Re: Corrupt /var/lib/dpkg/status on a new install

This card is working fine--no messed up dpkg/status file, e2fsck -n comes back clean. And apt full-upgrade completes no issues.

Probably worth running debsums as well. ext2/3/4 does not checksum user data, so e2fsck will only notice a problem if corruption happens to land in the 1.6% of blocks that hold directories or metadata. debsums can check most files that belong to packages.The last command should take a few minutes and produce no output. If it lists any files it would be interesting to know whether they have the same issue of blocks of <FF> in the middle. However, most of the files will be in binary formats, so it might not be as easy to tell.

Good point about the first boot. As well as apt running, there is the resizing of the filesystem from ~5.5GB to the size of card. That involves the kernel writing to about 1.6% of the new space in the background.

If you can mount the card on another Debian or Pi system before booting it, you can run sudo debsums -c -r /mnt/rootfs to check it. There are no errors in the 2025-05-13 image file.

Statistics: Posted by jojopi — Sun Jul 27, 2025 4:43 pm

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