E: Archive directory /var/cache/apt/archives/partial is missing Error and Solution

by Vivek Gite on December 14, 2009 · 1 comment

I'm trying to install mysql-server package under Debian using the following command:

apt-get install mysql-server-5.0 mysql-common

But I'm getting an error which read as follows:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
libdevel-symdump-perl liburi-perl libhtml-parser-perl libapr1 libhtml-tree-perl libpq5 libhtml-tagset-perl libwww-perl
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
libdbd-mysql-perl libmysqlclient15off mysql-client-5.0
Suggested packages:
tinyca
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libdbd-mysql-perl libmysqlclient15off mysql-client-5.0 mysql-common mysql-server-5.0
0 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
E: Archive directory /var/cache/apt/archives/partial is missing.

How do I fix the problem?

This problem occurs when you try to free disk space by deleting the downloaded *.deb files from /var/cache/apt/archives/ directory. You can fix this problem simply by creating directories as follows. Login as root user and type the following command:
# mkdir -p /var/cache/apt/archives/partial
# apt-get autoclean

Sample outputs:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done

The last command clears out the local repository of retrieved package files. This allows a cache to be maintained over a long period without it growing out of control i.e. disk space issues. Do not delete files or subdirs from the /var/cache/apt/ using the rm command or rmdir command. Now you can install the required packages.
# apt-get install mysql-server-5.0 mysql-common

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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

1 vinod December 14, 2009

hehe , I have done that on my desktop…. when I was checking which folder taking space , which was located to be /var/cache/atpt/archives , I just deleted it ..

And next time when I ran adept , the same error was shown :) …

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