Update Manager Error - Invalid Package Name

I get the following error when trying to perform an update in Ubuntu 12.04 64bit:

installArchives() failed: Preconfiguring packages ...
Preconfiguring packages ...
Preconfiguring packages ...
Preconfiguring packages ...
dpkg: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 40128 package 'foomatic-db-compressed-ppds': `Suggests' field, invalid package name `printer5driver-?2300w': character `?' not allowed (only letters, digits and characters `-+._')

Any ideas on how to solve this?

1 Answer

It seems like your /var/lib/dpkg/available file is corrupted. So delete or move the current one and create a new file from backup.

sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/available ~/Desktop
sudo cp /var/lib/dpkg/available-old /var/lib/dpkg/available