Adept and apt-get not working "Read error"

[nitewing98]

Greetings gang, I've got a doozy. This evening I noticed there were some 16 updates and went to install them, but did something stupid and clicked the Adept notifier twice, which spawned 2 sets of windows. I panicked and instead of just waiting for one to get stuck because the dpkg database was busy, I frantically tried to close one of them, hoping I'd catch it before it got off the ground.

Long story short (too late): Now the dpkg database is messed up and neither Adept nor apt-get will work. apt-get tells me:
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Read error - read (5 Input/output error)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
..and Adept gives me some stupid instruction to run "apt-setup" and then "apt-get update." Neither of which work.
I've searched here and on the web and tried clean, autoclean, update, upgrade, autoremove to no avail.

Got any ideas? If I have to nuke the dpkg files and just reload everything (including packages) that's fine, I'll do it.

[Snowhog]

Re: Adept and apt-get not working "Read error"

To fix Adept errors:
Open a console and type:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

should fix it, else continue with

sudo apt-get clean

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install

[nitewing98]

Re: Adept and apt-get not working "Read error"

Thanks, Snowhog! I could have sworn I tried all that, but it worked today where it didn't last night. I guess a fresh reboot and a clear head help!

[Snowhog]

Re: Adept and apt-get not working "Read error"

Well, regardless, it worked.

Happy to have assisted in any useful way.