UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

I've got a strange one. As root, in aptitude, I'll do an update successfully. Then I do an upgrade, the files download, the progress bar will not show total progress, just progress per file, then reset to 0% for the next file. When the files complete downloading, I hit a carrige return to go to the installation phase, I get an error telling me that aptitude couldn't lock the cache, and will open it read only, and the upgrade stops.

Using apt-get, I update successfully, I do upgrade, the files start downloading, again, instead of getting a total progress percentage at the begining of each line, I just get some bogus number. When downloading is complete, I get an error message telling me that every file I just watched download is missing, and maybe I should try again with --fix-missing.

If I do something like 'apt-get --reinstall install apt', this works. If I use apt-get to install a new package, it installs the new package
successfully along with any dependancies.

I'm running unstable with the 2.4.19 kernel on three machines, and this strange behavior only affects one machine. Anyone one got any ideas as to the problem?

TIA - mk

I found a work around by adding the line "Debug::NoLocking" to /etc/apt/apt.conf. This allowed me to do the upgrade. I also found out about this bug. Hope this helps anyone with the same problem now or in the future. -mk