syntax error: unknown group 'Debian-exim' in statoverride file

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dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
Last updated: 24/05/2006 12:34:18

If you get the following error when installing packages in Debian linux:

root@foo:dpkg$ apt-get install amap
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
amap
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 70.0kB of archives.
After unpacking 164kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://ftp.uk.debian.org sarge/main amap 4.8-1 [70.0kB]
Fetched 70.0kB in 0s (447kB/s)
dpkg: syntax error: unknown group `Debian-exim' in statusoverride file
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)

This is because Debian seems create a file override but not delete it when you remove exim.

To fix, use the following command:

dpkg-statoverride --remove /etc/exim4/passwd.client

This will update /var/lib/dpkg/statoverride

I also had to manually edit /var/lib/dpkg/statoverride because there was an invalid "postfix" user setup ... changed it with my own username and problem was fixed.