dpkg warning files list file for package missing

Have a look at this Serverfault question.

You might want to try something like this:

for package in $(apt-get upgrade 2>&1 |\
                 grep "warning: files list file for package '" |\
                 grep -Po "[^'\n ]+'" | grep -Po "[^']+"); do
    apt-get install --reinstall "$package";
done

Copy/paste friendly in one line:

for package in $(apt-get upgrade 2>&1 | grep "warning: files list file for package '" | grep -Po "[^'\n ]+'" | grep -Po "[^']+"); do apt-get install --reinstall "$package"; done

Be aware that running this command takes some time as it cycles through every package.

I wanted to suggest something similar to the accepted answer there before I found this. And I don't have enough reputation to add this as a comment.

Unfortunately I can't answer why this is happening. I had this problem after a dist-upgrade, and fixed it by reinstalling the packages.

We had a RAID5 failure that seemed to come with some corruption of the dpkg list database so I encountered this problem recently, however the solution above didn't work, as apt-get install --reinstall xxx yielded more errors of dodgy list files. I did manage to resolve it in my case though, so here's the process I used.

In the end, the process that worked for me was to remove all the files corresponding to that package in the database, and reinstall after updating dpkg itself.

As an example, here's one such error (replace antlr with your missing package name from here on):

dpkg: warning files list file for package antlr, assuming package has no files currently installed.

Which for me the solution was:

sudo mv /var/lib/dpkg/info/antlr* ~/var   # Backup in case of any other issues
                                          # Alternatively: sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/info/antlr*

Then,

sudo dpkg --configure -a

The key seemed to be to run the configure command each time a package listing was removed (versus some other suggestions I've seen of nuking all the list files and then running apt-get update/upgrade).

Then finally, sudo apt-get install --reinstall antlr would complete correctly.

I had the same issue on one of my instances and the fix for me was re-install the offending packages with apt:

sudo apt reinstall <package_name_1> <package_name_2>

After a successful re-install, re-running the same command and the error went away

This worked for me:

$ dpkg -S dummy query 2>/tmp/warnings
$ cat /tmp/warnings | awk '{print $8}' > /tmp/packages
# manually edit /tmp/packages to remove (') around package names. 
# Use a txt editor and just replaceall (') with nothing
# https://askubuntu.com/questions/12041/how-can-i-navigate-to-tmp
# then run the following:
$ for package in $(cat /tmp/packages); do echo apt-get install --reinstall $package; apt-get install --reinstall $package; done;

Source: https://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=119371

If you tried @fronk's answer but apt-get upgrade doesn't return any dpkg warnings but apt-get install <some dummy package> --reinstall does return dpkg errors. Replace apt-get upgrade with apt-get install <some dummy package> --reinstall like so:

for package in $(apt-get install <some dummy package> --reinstall 2>&1 | grep "warning: files list file for package '" | grep -Po "[^'\n ]+'" | grep -Po "[^']+"); do apt-get install --reinstall "$package"; done

If it's not causing any real problems, don't worry about it. If it is, try the fixes people have already posted.