How can I fix "dpkg: error: parsing file"?

Question

I am very new to Linux, and am using Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

All updates are failing with

installArchives() failed: dpkg: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/available' 
near line 2 package 'libgwibber-gtk2': 
value for `status' field not allowed in this context Error in function: 

How can I fix this problem?

Solution

How to reset the dpkg available status

Please open a terminal with Ctrl + Alt + t and enter the following commands line-by-line:

sudo dpkg --clear-avail
sudo apt-get update